Holby City, styled as HOLBY CI⁺Y, is a BAFTA award winningBBC - Holby City - News & Gossip medical drama television serial transmitted by BBC One in the United Kingdom. It is a spin-off from Casualty, and is set in the same hospital, with occasional crossovers of characters and plots. It follows the lives of surgeons, nurses, other medical and ancillary staff and patients at the fictional Holby City Hospital. The show has a number of writers, including the current Executive Producer, Tony McHale. McHale wrote the first ever episode and continued to write for the show for a number of years, until taking a break from the show and returning a few years later as the Producer. He co-created the series with Mal Young, however it was only in 2006 that he became the Executive Producer. Due to his commitments overseeing the show, he tends to only write episodes for special occasions, such as "Elliot's Wonderful Life" at Christmas in 2007 and "No Breaks on the Midnight Express: Parts 1 & 2" at the end of series ten.

Production

Origins and development

Holby City began on 12 January 1999 as a spin-off from the long-running BBC medical drama Casualty and is named after the fictional Holby City Hospital in which both series are set. The show follows the lives and careers of staff and patients at the hospital and deals with a range of clinical and ethical issues. The regular characters are all staff, and patients are played by guest actors - which have included some famous names such as Eric Sykes, Phill Jupitus, Michael Jayston, Michele Dotrice, Ronni Ancona, Emma Samms, Lee Ryan, Nikki Sanderson and Johnny Briggs.
Series creator Mal Young explained of the show's conception as a Casualty spin-off: "Like most people I’ve often wondered what happens next to those patients who come in after accidents. Where do they go when you see them disappearing upstairs on a trolley at the end of an episode? As I thought about this, it struck me – why start afresh when you’ve got the basis of a series already? People have busy lives and if they already follow a number of soaps, they take to a new drama series when they make sense quickly. This could be a way of helping that to happen."