THE YOUNG DOCTORS

- 1976-1983 - 1396 x 30 minute episodes -
- Produced by the Reg Grundy Organisation for the Nine Network -

The Young Doctors was the hospital-based soap opera where medical drama took a back seat to romance. Produced Channel Nine, this was the Grundy Organisation’s second successful foray into drama, after Class of ‘74. Again this was a lightweight serial designed for stripping in an early evening timeslot, and again Alan Coleman was the man in charge.

THE BEGINNINGS

The Young Doctors began on air on Monday 8 November 1976 in the Australian summer non-ratings period, and was shown each week night in an early evening slot. It was set in the fictional Albert Memorial Hospital and came complete with a catchy theme tune and appealing opening titles sequence of quick cuts of dramatic shots from the show. Both would be revamped many times as the series continued. The doctors here were the youngest ever, and they were ably assisted by a gaggle of glamorous nurses who they frequently romanced. There was a high turnover of young actors in the show, though the more senior cast members remained more stable.

Medical dramas and sex were eschewed by the teen oriented soap. Romance was the big thing and weddings, along with several aborted weddings with one of the participants dramatically pulling out at the last moment, constituted the show’s major high points. Budding romances are much more fun than dull domesticity, and with a cancelled wedding you still have the pre-wedding nerves and last-minute crises, while the cast can all still get dressed up and appear on the cover of TV Week before the dramatic let-down.

Channel Nine had launched The Young Doctors and the Crawford’s produced World War II drama serial The Sullivans - a more prestige series with a budget reputedly three times that of The Young Doctors - at around the same time. Whichever series was the bigger success, they reasoned, would be continued while the other would be cancelled. The Young Doctors had been commissioned with an initial 13 week contract. Perhaps impressed by the critical plaudits The Sullivans was attracting, Nine opted to continue that series and not renew The Young Doctors when those 13 weeks were up. [1] However a private ratings survey had revealed that The Young Doctors was very popular with viewers, and at what was supposed to be the wrap party the cast and crew were told that the show had been given a last-minute reprieve and was now being renewed.

In the event The Sullivans climbed steadily in the ratings and also became an enduring popular success. Though The Young Doctors had been an instant success The Sullivans would eventually far surpass it in popularity, and certainly in critical acclaim. In any event Nine had had the good sense to continue with both shows, and they both enjoyed successful runs of about six years. From the brink of an early cancellation The Young Doctors would ultimately become the longest running Australian serial to that time.

When the series hit the 100 episode mark in 1977 producer Alan Coleman summed up the show’s formula for TV Week: “Pure entertainment it is, it doesn’t pretend to have any real message or anything like that, but at the same time I believe programs like it have a very real worth,” he said. “The basic difference between this show and the American soaps is that we have encouraged a mixture in the scripts. We like to have bits of comedy to relieve things occasionally.” [2]

The low budget of The Young Doctors is painfully apparent on screen. The few sets built for the show looked very shoddy, camera movements were often awkward and jerky while the image quality of the various cameras rarely matched, and the early years featured no location work whatsoever. Actors were encouraged to wear their own clothes in the show, helping to ease the straining costumes budget, and with the feverish production schedule retakes were a luxury - actors who muddled their lines had to just continue with the scene, with blunders covered by a pick-up shot. Certainly the series holds the dubious honour, rare among long running Australian drama series, of having never won any sort of television award ever. [3] Yet while this popular piece of trivia does seem to neatly articulate the program’s lack of technical proficiency, in fact the series received Logie Award nominations in 1977 and 1978 for Best Drama, while cast member Cornelia Frances was nominated for the Best Actress Logie both those years. On each occasion the awards went to The Sullivans and that program’s lead actress Lorraine Bayly, so while The Young Doctors never won an award, it did have very strong competition. [4]

ICONIC CHARACTERS

Despite its obvious low budget, quite a few good actors appeared in the show. Even with retakes strongly discouraged several gems of acting shine through. Perhaps the best performance of all was from Cornelia Frances who portrayed the strict and officious Sister Grace Scott, ostensibly the show’s villain. Though she seemed frosty and unpleasant to outsiders, Grace masked personal loneliness with a facade of brisk efficiency. The de facto family of the Alfred Memorial Hospital might have been frustrated at times with her officious ways, but ultimately they respected her.

Of her role in the series, Frances told TV Week in June 1977 that “I’ve nearly always played bitches and I like them. They are far more satisfying to play than good people. Good people are just good but bitches are bitches for complex reasons - romantic let-downs, childhood traumas, parental conflicts. They’re fascinating.” Frances admits she could not refuse the role after the show’s executive producer Reg Watson called her to say ‘I’ve written this role for you. You’re the biggest bitch in the business and we want you’. Of the character Frances observed that “In some ways I’m sorry for Sister Scott. She’s a tartar, but she’s a good nurse and can’t stand less capable people. The young nurses respect her but don’t like her. There are good reasons why she’s a hard woman and why she has cut emotion out of her life.” [5]

Years later in her 2003 autobiography ‘And What Have You Done Lately?’, Frances recounted that some of the actors used the old trick of deliberately making an obvious mistake or pretending to go blank if they weren’t happy with a certain performance during taping. This would then force a retake. Frances notes that in the current Australian television industry, the same trick would ensure that the actor would not be used on the production again. [6] Yet even on The Young Doctors visible shadows of the boom microphone were deemed unacceptable and if they crept into shot retakes would be ordered. On one occasion Frances recalls having to hold her tongue after being ordered to enact the same verbose and emotional scene six times due to recurring problems of a visible boom shadow. [7]

Though she stayed in the series less than three years, Sister Scott is perhaps the best remembered character from the show. She endured several dramatic storylines including being raped twice, being investigated for causing the death of a colleague, being jilted at the altar when her fiancé got cold feet, and then having a one night stand with the dashing young Dr Craig Rothwell (John Walton). Later, Grace would fall hard when a faulty lift failed to arrive as the doors opened, and - her attention focused on issuing a stern lecture to Nurse Jill Gordon (Joanne Samuel) - she stepped into the shaft. While the episode ended on a cliffhanger where it looked as though Sister Scott had died in the fall, she survived with only a broken leg. Scott would later be promoted to Matron, but by 1979 Grace Scott had disappeared when Cornelia Frances decided to leave the series after her husband was transferred to work in Melbourne for 12 months. In the storyline Matron Scott was said to be now mostly working behind a desk, and was slowly phased out with fewer and fewer appearances in the show before quietly, and permanently, disappearing. Despite promises from Channel Nine to the contrary, Grace Scott was not written back into the storyline when Frances made her eventual return to Sydney, and she never reappeared in the series. [8]

Her portrayer Cornelia Frances later elaborated on Scott’s permanent discharge. Frances observed that at the time of her return to Sydney there were still on screen references to Sister Scott in The Young Doctors. “I was sick of hearing Sister Scott was on holidays or stuck in a cupboard. I asked if I could go back in the series and, if necessary, get killed off. I was told that Sister Scott couldn’t die so I asked if I could come back and live … I even offered them a script idea. They said they would call me but a month later I was still waiting.” Frances later learned that the makers of the show considered Sister Scott too strong a character and that the storyline of the series at that stage did not lend itself to her return. Frances remained on the lookout for a similar strong part somewhere else. “If I could get another long-term role like Scotty, I’d certainly consider returning to soapies. She was the sort of character you could make your own, someone who stands out in a crowd … but there are not enough parts like that.” [9]

Frances was soon granted her wish when the role of strong and sardonic Barbara in new serial Sons and Daughters came up. The role lasted several years, and was followed by the similarly assertive and complex character of Morag in Home and Away. Between Home and Away appearances, in 2001-2002, Cornelia Frances was again the much-discussed star of a popular television series when she became the cutting host of the Seven Network quiz show The Weakest Link.

The show’s other iconic character was kiosk lady Ada Simmonds (Gwen Plumb). Ada, a chatty and opinionated gossip, was always perched at the kiosk located within the hospital’s reception area where she could oversee the parade of doctors, nurses, orderlies and various hospital officials playing out their mostly personal but sometimes professional dramas. Ada was often vocal with her theory about the latest hospital mystery, always ready with bits of advice and some crusty asides. Ada would continue through the show’s entire run.

Tim Page as the phlegmatic Dr Graham Steele was one of several interns introduced at the start of the series, and was the only one of them still around by the time the final episode rolled around six years later. Alfred Sandor as the rather patrician head surgeon Dr Raymond Shaw was in the series five years. Illness eventually prompted the veteran US actor’s departure from the show shortly before it finished production. Other long-running original cast members were Chris King as friendly orderly Dennis Jameson, Michael Beecher as debonair hospital superintendent Dr Brian Denham and Lyn James as his faithful secretary Helen Gordon.

Delvene Delaney played nurse Jo-Jo Adams for the show’s first six months while comedian ‘Ugly’ Dave Gray played the jolly bar owner Bunny Howard for even less time. Bunny was the father of another of the new interns, Dr Jim Howard (John Dommett), and he ran Bunny’s Place, the bar opposite the hospital where the hospital staff hung out. Though a comedian popular on the club circuit and on Australian television variety programs, Gray turned in a good straight dramatic performance in the serial.

Dave Gray was unaccustomed to having to memorise so many lines of dialogue. He would finish work on The Young Doctors for the day and then head out again for evening’s club work, so when he arrived on set each morning he never knew his lines. Since Gray’s character Bunny was frequently seen serving behind the bar, Gray would secretly paste pages from his script in various locations behind the bar in the Bunny’s Place set. After a few rehearsals and run-throughs where he’d furtively glance down at his script Gray often found he had memorised his lines and when it came time for a take he could act his scene without constantly looking down. [10]

Gray later admitted he wasn’t really happy as a dramatic actor. In addition, the evening club work coupled with early morning studio calls proved to be an exhausting and unsustainable schedule. Some weeks into the serial’s run Graham Kennedy personally called to invite Gray to join the panel of planned new comedy game show he was hosting. The show would be titled Blankety Blanks. Kennedy convinced Gray that the proposed show would likely proceed, urging him to accept the offer. Though the Blankety Blanks appointment would mean a drop in money compared to the already low paying The Young Doctors, Gray reasoned the series seemed like fun so opted to take up the offer. This was at week nine of The Young Doctors and as the regulars were on 13 week contracts Gray would be free to leave the series in just a few weeks. However with the character’s growing importance in the various story threads Gray knew the producers would not be happy about his desire to leave The Young Doctors when his initial 13 week contract was up. When they urged him to reconsider, Gray, partly hoping to keep open the possibility of his return should Blankety Blanks fail, suggested that Bunny could simply leave for a long holiday. The makers of the serial were unhappy to lose Gray, having built-up his character over the course of the series, and three weeks later Gray received his script and discovered that Bunny was to be killed off: Bunny exited the series by suffering a massive heart attack whilst serving behind the bar. [11]

Meanwhile Bunny Howard’s son Jim Howard continued as a major character in the series for several years. Bunny’s Place would later be run by singer Anne Marie Austin (Judi Connelli). She long carried a torch for Dr Denham, but when she eventually opted to leave Bunny’s for a singing tour he did not pick up the signs so she left without him.

An early storyline added spice to the mundane hospital routine when New Zealand-born actor Noel Trevarthen appeared as Philip Winter, a wealthy and demanding celebrity patient of the hospital with Abigail as his super-efficient secretary Hilary Templeton and Kim Wran, daughter of then New South Wales premier Neville Wran, as his beautiful young mistress, Carolyn Fielding. They all departed after the storyline was over but Kim Wran and Abigail were back in the show just months later. Hilary returned to the storyline as organiser to pop music manager Milt Baxter who managed singer Georgie Saint (Mark Hembrow). Milt was played by Abigail’s real-life boyfriend and manager Mark Hashfield, reversing their real-life roles where it was he who looked after Abigail’s interests. [12] Kim Wran returned to the show in a more permanent role when Carolyn became a receptionist at the hospital who much later married Dennis Jameson.

FAMOUS INTERNS

As the show continued there was always a high turnover of youngsters playing doctors and nurses, many of whom enjoyed continued stardom after their role in the series ended. Lynda Stoner and Paula Duncan (who both left The Young Doctors to take roles in Cop Shop) enjoyed long acting careers. After several years as nurse Liz Kennedy, Rebecca Gilling moved up in the world as star of glossy miniseries Return to Eden before reprising the role in the year-long sequel series of the same title that followed. After playing Dr Gail Henderson for the first two years of The Young Doctors, Peta Toppano appeared in a plethora of Australian films, television series and stage shows, and was an original cast member of Prisoner before co-starring with Gilling in the series version of Return to Eden. Alan Dale who played the complex and moody Dr John Forrest for three years went into the long running role of Jim Robinson in Neighbours, followed by international fame as a familiar face in many high profile and successful US television series such as The X Files, ER, 24, The O.C., The West Wing, CSI: Miami, Navy NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service, Lost and Ugly Betty.

Others enjoyed long running roles playing key characters in The Young Doctors but were barely heard from again after leaving the series. Long termers now in the Where are they Now? file include Ros Wood who played nurse Kate Rhodes, Peter Lochran who was the handsome Dr Peter Holland, Diana McLean who played the snippy Sister Vivienne Jefferies who took over from Sister Scott, and Susanne Stuart who was the friendly senior nurse Sister Suzanne Gibbes. Perhaps Stuart, who had actually been a real-life nurse before acting in the series, went back to nursing for real? Like Ros Wood, she certainly had no further acting credits after The Young Doctors. McLean acted sporadically on Australian television in guest roles, while Lochran lent his handsome visage to US daytime serials, with stints in Another World and Capitol in the mid 1980s.

Meanwhile with Number 96 ending in mid 1977, many former cast members from that show turned up in guest roles in The Young Doctors. They included Joe Hasham as heterosexual villain Ken Hansen, Carol Raye as Jim Howard’s interfering future mother-in-law Rosalie Parker, Lynn Rainbow as the mother of Dr Peter Holland, Deborah Gray as Peter’s old flame Lana Maxwell who returns and becomes fixated on him, along with Thelma Scott, Mike Dorsey, Frances Hargreaves, Bunney Brooke, Ron Shand, Arianthe Galani, Bettina Welch, and Mike Ferguson. Chard Hayward, Number 96’s Dudley, had a brief role in late 1980 as family man Tom Garrett, a juror in a trial involving a regular character from the series. Hayward said of his appearance that “I’m looking forward to The Young Doctors. It’s a good script and I’ve always maintained that YD has the magic that Number 96 used to have. It has real characters and cliffhangers and elements of fun. Some others have become very heavy handed. It has a happy cast and I’ve got a lot of friends there. People I’ve known for years.” [13] And after stints as young beauties with more than meets the eye in both Number 96 and Prisoner, Margaret Laurence showed up at the Albert Memorial as the outwardly sweet but apparently devious nurse Yvonne Davies.

Pretty blond nurse Tania Livingston (Judy McBurney) had joined The Young Doctors in the early days and then never left. Her biggest storyline was the romance with the handsome and fiery Dr Tony Garcia (Tony Alvarez), even if he was on the rebound from highly-strung nurse Lisa Brooks (Paula Duncan), Ada’s niece. When Tania and Tony were married in the storyline the event was captured in a major Church wedding and outdoor reception sequence shot on location, although the video quality of the outside broadcast video used for the location scenes is even lower than the studio-shot scenes from the series. Actors Judy McBurney and Tony Alvarez were sent on a nation-wide publicity tour to mark the event; they were feted everywhere they went and were swamped by wedding presents sent in by adoring fans.

After this it was back to disastrous wedding ceremonies. Nurse Liz Kennedy (Rebecca Gilling) ran out on her wedding to Dr Ben Fielding (Eric Oldfield) when Dr John Forrest (Alan Dale) dramatically strode into the church to show reason why the wedding should not proceed. And Nurse Julie Holland (Lisa Aldenhoven) was shot by a deranged woman during her wedding to Dr Russell Edwards (Peter Cousens). And the weddings that did occur did not lead to long happy marriages. Jim Howard’s wife Maureen Parker (Virginia Rudeno) was killed in a car accident as they drove off for their honeymoon. Graham Steele was happily married to Eve Turner (Anne Lucas) but her subsequent pregnancy caused concern due to a secret hereditary condition in her family. The marriage ultimately failed. After the big fanfare, the marriage of Tania and Tony Garcia soon faltered. He went overseas and never came back; it was eventually reported that he would not be returning to Tania. Meanwhile when Liz Kennedy finally did marry Dr John Forrest (in a quiet registry office affair in an episode dominated by their travelogue-style day trip to Melbourne) she was electrocuted by a faulty lamp that evening.

EVALUATION OF THE SERIES

Despite the program’s obvious technical deficiencies the storyline, scripts, and the acting performances suggest that the people working on the series understood the limitations of the system they were working within, but worked hard to build the drama and create believable characters nevertheless. Overall the performers and the behind the scenes creative crew seemed to strive for believable characters, and their approach to the series seems sincere. Apparently mundane hospital discussions were imbued with subtext and tension; subtle glances and facial expressions and pauses suggest unspoken thoughts and desires. In the weave of storylines emotion and drama would be accentuated by the confluence of contrasting elements.

Perhaps this is best shown in the episode of Sister Scott’s wedding to Les Bradley (Richard Meikle). Returning to the hospital from their small (and sober) hen party, Grace Scott, Helen Gordon and Laura Denham (Joanna Moore-Smith) bump into Doctor Brian Denham at the elevator entrance. Grace, comfortable in her pragmatic resolve of holding an unromantic view towards marriage, continues to her room leaving a rather awkward situation where Brian offers to drive his estranged wife Laura home, and so Helen, his secretary, leaves. Brian’s conversation with Laura disappoints her: he will accompany her to the wedding reception, but only to keep up external appearances amongst his hospital colleagues. Meanwhile shy and naïve young nurse Julie Warner (Margaret Nelson) falls in love with the more worldly Dr Greg Mason (Mark Holden) after just one rather innocent date together. As a troubled Greg tries to discuss the somewhat fraught situation with Dr Craig Rothwell, Craig is called away when Grace’s fiancé telephones to say he can’t go through with the wedding.

Further tensions arise in the episode when, during arrangements for the wedding reception at Bunny’s, Bunny and his girlfriend and business partner Edna Curtis (Vivienne Benson-Young) renew their argument over the hugely elaborate and expensive wedding of son Jim to Maureen that Bunny is being manipulated into financing. When a subsequent argument over the rather beleaguered Bunny partaking in a straight scotch before the ceremony has even begun cuts straight to a shot of an anxious Les, well past his first drink of the day, the tension is effectively heightened, the link and contrast emphatically drawn. Meanwhile as Craig remains flippantly cynical about Greg’s new-found attraction for the plain Julie he is quick to disavow Les’s admission that he does not love Grace and is marrying her only for convenience and out of loneliness. Perhaps not great art, but certainly effective drama.

Amongst the bubbling romances and straining marriages an underlying theme of the series seemed to be that the family of the Albert Memorial would ultimately stand together to support their own. Ada, an opinionated and interfering gossip, was shown to be actually loved and respected by the denizens of the hospital. Newcomers who expressed their contempt of her would soon be told what a wonderful, caring lady she really was. When Julie Warner thought she had fallen in love with Greg Mason, work colleague Jo-Jo jumped in as her protector lest the romance end in disaster. And it had always been clear that the cool Grace Scott was actually respected by anyone who mattered at the hospital.

THE END

Late in the show’s run the series overtook the record held by Number 96 to become Australia’s longest running serial. However also around this time things started going down hill for The Young Doctors. Long term producer Alan Coleman left, and several key characters, including Dr Raymond Shaw and Superintendent Dr Brian Denham whose friendship/rivalry in the milieu of high-level hospital management had driven a good segment of the drama, had by now departed. Nurse Tania Livingston, elegant secretary Helen Gordon, gossipy cornerstone Ada, Dr John Forrest, and the humourless Dr Graham Steele remained, and were joined by an influx of new cast members including Babs McMillan, Graham Harvey, Julieanne White, Sally Tayler, Tottie Goldsmith, Genevieve Lemon and Julie Nihill. Though The Young Doctors would not be given long to live, these newcomers would soon make the successful switch to new soap operas.

With declining ratings - especially in the crucial Sydney market - The Young Doctors was cancelled in 1982. Production ended late that year, and screenings were switched to a daytime slot to play out the stockpiled episodes in the first few months of 1983. The final episode was screened on Wednesday 30 March 1983. With 1396 thirty-minute episodes in the can it was ranked as Australia’s longest running series ever, a record that would remain unsurpassed until being broken by A Country Practice in 1990.

THE LEGACY

A special two-disc DVD retrospective of selected episodes of The Young Doctors, entitled The Best Romances: 30th Anniversary Collection, was released in late 2006. Episodes featuring weddings and pivotal moments in romantic storylines were included in this collection. A second two-disc DVD retrospective, The Young Doctors - Classic Cliffhangers: Collectors Edition, was released in February 2008. This second compilation includes an early acting appearance for Russell Crowe, Sister Scott’s fall down the elevator shaft, a cholera epidemic spread by a mystery poisoner, Georgie Saint’s mystery illness, and Kate Rhodes’ evil twin. In late 2007 it was announced that a remake of The Young Doctors would screen on the Ten Network in 2008, and that Mark Holden was keen to make an appearance in the new version. [14] Subsequent reports stated that the Nine Network will produce the series, meaning that Holden, at the time contracted to Ten, would now be unable to appear. [15]

Originally uploaded May 2000

Last updated 1 December 2008

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