Green Wing Special - Production

Production

For more details on the production of Green Wing, see Green Wing.

The production on the special was similar to that of the other episodes, with the hospital scenes being shot in the usual locations (the Northwick Park Hospital in Middlesex and the North Hampshire Hospital in Basingstoke). The script was written by the usual eight-person team led by Victoria Pile, and produced and directed by the same people who recorded all the previous episodes. The special was recorded at the same time as the second series. The exterior scenes were harder to shoot. In the beginning funeral scene, one of the mourners is Alan Yentob, who had been filming an episode of the BBC One documentary series Imagine. Stephen Mangan said that Martin's mime during the funeral was one of his favourite moments in Green Wing. The opening titles of the episode differ from the others as it does not use the normal theme tune, "Last Week", (as it is named in the original television soundtrack) and instead uses the track, "Camel".

There were some improvised scenes. These included a scene in the beginning of the episode where Alan and Joanna are in a middle of a field and the scene begins with a low-angle shot. Later, when Alan is "humping" Joanna, the scene suddenly becomes a crane shot. This is because the crew at the time had a crane camera after they had finished filming the final scenes in series 2 where Alan, Joanna and Martin are teetering over the edge of a cliff in the stolen camper van. The camper van scenes were the hardest to shoot, especially the scene where the van explodes, as this had to be done in one take. Another problem was the smell of the van, which Pippa Haywood said, "smelt of old dogs." The van also suffered other problems such as bits of the steering wheel and gear stick coming off. Julian Rhind-Tutt commented that the scene where Alan and Boyce talk together for the last time was one of the most moving scenes in the whole of Green Wing. The wedding was shot at Hall of Bayham Abbey in Kent, where the crew had difficulty filming due to bad weather. The show also features a guest appearance from Jeremy Sheffield near the end of the episode as Sue's new boyfriend.

The DVD of the special was released on 8 January, four days after its premiere in the UK. Features include the alternate ending, a "Behind the Scenes" featurette, 20 minutes of deleted scenes and commentary from many of the main cast, which includes commentary from some foreign relatives of Michelle Gomez who had not seen the show before. Three extra deleted scenes from the special were later released in "The Definitive Collection" DVD boxset.