Typical of the great actor Timothy West that his last performance was not in some big-budget movie or arty stage show, but in a workaday TV episode — and on the very day his death was announced.
West was a trouper, a product of 1950s repertory touring theatre companies. He was never too proud to put in a stint on soaps, playing patriarch Stan Carter in EastEnders. And on Coronation Street, his character, Eric, was awarded the rare privilege of dropping dead in the Rovers.
His final role was a cameo in Doctors on Wednesday, enjoying himself immensely as a nosy neighbour called Artie Simkins who calls for medical aid after the woman next-door collapses in her back garden.
Artie and the prostrate Sylvie (Trudie Goodwin) were flirting like mad over the garden fence as they waited for the ambulance. It was great to see West bow out with his characteristic twinkle.
Doctors itself bowed out 24 hours later, ending its quarter-of-a-century run with a flourish. Nasty Dr Graham Elton (Alex Avery) got his comeuppance, Dr Jimmi Clay (Adrian Lewis Morgan) tore up the NHS rulebook and got back to treating patients, and midwife Ruhma Carter (Bharti Patel) survived a hostage crisis before falling into the arms of her admirer, Sgt Rob Hollins (Chris Walker).
Timothy West’s final role was a cameo in Doctors on Wednesday, enjoying himself immensely as a nosy neighbour called Artie Simkins
Doctors itself bowed out 24 hours later, ending its quarter-of-a-century run with a flourish
The episode ends with a montage of the cast in the surgery as the video pans out above The Mill Heath Health Centre
Doctors: A Celebration followed, a 25-minute summary that really should have been longer. Christopher Timothy, one of the original cast, fondly remembered his years as the hard-drinking Dr Brendan ‘Mac’ MacGuire.
Other famous faces included Brian Blessed, Richard Briers and Honor Blackman . . . all of them, like Tim West, hard-working thesps. More surprising was the roll-call of apprentice actors, before success struck — among them Jodie Comer, Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Eddie ‘the Jackal’ Redmayne.
With Doctors being struck off the schedules as part of a BBC cost-cutting exercise (original drama is too expensive compared to quiz shows and panel games), a grand TV tradition stretching back to the 1960s is over.
Before the medics of Letherbridge, we had another daily soap opera based in Birmingham, at the Crossroads motel. Because it was filmed so briskly, Doctors often had a similar style: its sets didn’t wobble, but its camerawork relied on the same silent close-ups and exaggerated reaction shots.
Plots rattled along, often making unexplained leaps. Even on the last day, this was apparent: one moment, Ruhma was being held at knifepoint by a deranged conspiracy theorist; the next, she and an expectant mother were barricaded into a side room, keeping the loony at bay with a broom.
Such inconsistencies never mattered. All viewers need is to see familiar characters coping with daily crises and falling in love with each other. It’s not a lot to ask.
When the beloved Aussie soap Neighbours ended on Channel 5 a couple of years ago, Amazon was quick to step in and revive it. Let’s hope the same happens again. Save Our Doctors!
