Creation
Elliot was introduced to Holby City in November 2005 as the new Clinical Lead of the hospital's cardiothoracic surgery ward. Paul Bradley was cast in the role, having auditioned for a smaller part and impressed executive producer Richard Stokes, who asked him to audition for a longer-term character. Bradley met with the show's producers, who offered him the role of Elliot on the spot. His casting was announced in June 2005, when series producer Emma Turner commented: "The man is a great surgeon but his shambolic appearance and eccentric manner will cause the highly-political Connie's feathers to become ruffled. Elliott is a devoted family man who absorbs the pain he sees around him - but there will always be a price to pay."
As research for the role, Bradley observed three operations at the University College London Heart Hospital, an experience he described as "amazing" and a privilege to attend. Bradley's father was a doctor in Nuneaton, and he attempts to emulate him onscreen through his portrayal of Elliot. Bradley has described his first few weeks on Holby City as amongst the hardest acting experiences he has ever had, due to the medical terminology, props and procedures associated with the role.
Jim Shelly of The Mirror commented unfavourably on the "horrible inevitability" of Bradley's casting, as he had previously portrayed Nigel Bates in the BBC soap opera EastEnders. Shelley noted a trend for former EastEnders and Channel 4 soap Brookside actors being cast in Holby City. The show is filmed at Elstree Studios, where EastEnders is also filmed. Bradley has commented that it is "strange" making the same journey to a different show, and has noted differences between Elliot and his EastEnders character Nigel in that Elliot has a "better wardrobe" and is more intelligent. He has also commented that working on Holby City is "harder" than EastEnders, as the show is filmed with a single-camera set-up which takes longer, and there are "more things to go wrong" when working with medical props and simulating operations.
Read more about this topic: Elliot Hope
Famous quotes containing the word creation:
“We should always remember that the work of art is invariably the creation of a new world, so that the first thing we should do is to study that new world as closely as possible, approaching it as something brand new, having no obvious connection with the worlds we already know. When this new world has been closely studied, then and only then let us examine its links with other worlds, other branches of knowledge.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“Some collaboration has to take place in the mind between the woman and the man before the art of creation can be accomplished. Some marriage of opposites has to be consummated. The whole of the mind must lie wide open if we are to get the sense that the writer is communicating his experience with perfect fullness.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“One of the necessary qualifications of an efficient business man in these days of industrial literature seems to be the ability to write, in clear and idiomatic English, a 1,000-word story on how efficient he is and how he got that way.... It seems that the entire business world were devoting its working hours to the creation of a school of introspective literature.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)