Casualty@Holby City - Production

Production

The suggestion to produce the first Casualty and Holby City crossover originated from a member of the BBC comedy department. The station's Controller of Drama approved of the idea and had the crossover commissioned, spearheaded by Casualty's executive producer Mervyn Watson, and Holby City's Tony McHale. The writer and producer for the first, two-part crossover were selected from the Holby City crew. Logistical difficulties arose from the fact the two series are usually produced 120 miles apart, with Casualty based in Bristol and Holby City in Elstree. Both series are usually in continuous production 52 weeks a year, so in order to produce the first crossover, work on both shows has to be halted for two weeks to release a number of cast members to appear in the special. Once regular production began again, the availability of cast members set to appear in the crossover was limited, and both series had to rely for the most part on the remaining characters who were not in the special. Filming took six weeks to complete, and occurred for the most part at Casualty's emergency department in Bristol. Additional filming took place at the Holby City set in Elstree, as well as the Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children, a Barratts office block in Brentford and an ex-MOD tank testing site in Chobham. A theme tune was devised, consisting of both the Casualty and Holby City theme tunes played over one another in sync. Terry Ramsey of the Evening Standard described it as "shambolic", opining: "it sounds like it was produced with The Big Boy's Box of Sound Mixing software by a seven-year-old on Christmas Day while playing his PlayStation with the other hand."

A second crossover was commissioned in 2005 as part of the BBC's DoNation season. In August 2005, the station ran a week-long campaign to raise public awareness of organ donation, aiming to help viewers make an informed decision about whether to sign up to the Organ Donation Register. An interactive episode of Casualty@Holby City was one of the headlining shows of the season, allowing viewers to vote by phone to determine the outcome of a fictional organ donation. The episode was part documentary, and a segment presented by Robert Winston both detailed the guidelines for matching organ donors with recipients, and dispelled common myths about organ donation. Viewers were then invited to vote for one of two characters to receive a heart transplant. 98,800 viewers voted, with a 65 percent majority favouring that the organ be received by Lucy, a young cystic fibrosis patient, over Tony, a widow twenty years her senior. Two different endings were filmed, to account for both possible outcomes of the public vote. The alternative ending was made available on the Casualty@Holby City DoNation Interactive website.

The third Casualty@Holby City crossover was aired in October 2005, two months after the interactive special. The four-part storyline tackled the issue of youth violence, following the events of a turbulent A&E demonstration at an inner-city school. The crossover was broadcast in the same week that the BBC launched a new adaptation of Charles Dickens' Bleak House starring Gillian Anderson and Charles Dance, and Phil and Grant Mitchell returned to the station's soap opera EastEnders. BBC1 controller Peter Fincham explained: "We have got three very different dramas playing this week that emphasise the breadth and depth of what we have to offer. Changing the scheduling of established favourites and the format for presenting period drama is exactly what I want BBC1 to be doing, challenging our audiences with top quality programming."

Based on the success of the 2004 Casualty@Holby City Christmas special, another crossover was ordered for Christmas 2005. Rather than dividing the episodes between the two series' crews as had previously been standard, this crossover operated as an entirely separate production, with Diana Kyle producing and Paul Harrison directing. A large proportion of the crossover was filmed in a road tunnel in Caernarfon, Wales. Watson commented: "It was the only one that we could hire for two weeks without causing huge traffic jams. The whole shoot was five weeks long. Staging stunts like car accidents is difficult and stressful at the best of times, but doing all that in a tunnel doubled it. The great advantage was that there was no problem with the weather, it was a totally controlled environment with excellent parking facilities for the unit, and a warm welcome from the locals, which is always nice."