Getting into the Surgical Spirit
Published: Sunday 10th December 2023
While they are more frequently the subject of dramas and soaps like Casualty and Holby City, writers have always sought mirth in medicine.
Writer Peter Learmouth first found success in 1980, when Humphrey Barclay commissioned his first sitcom Cowboys, a show we wrote about in a previous Rewind. Although he wrote episodes of Keep It In The Family and Jim Davidson's Up The Elephant And Round The Castle, it wasn't until 1989 that he created another sitcom of his own, which would once again be produced by Barclay,
Surgical Spirit followed the trials and tribulations of the staff working at Gillies Hospital. Although there was an ensemble cast, Sheila Sabatini is the pivot around which the series revolves. Played with vim and vigour by Nichola McAuliffe - who had previously played Alice in the little remembered Pig In The Middle - Sabatini is a stern senior surgeon with a tongue as sharp as her scalpel.
Straight laced Dr Jonathan Haslam, played by Victoria Wood stalwart Duncan Preston, was one of the few people for whom Sabatini softened her acidic remarks, with the main plot threaded throughout the series drawn from their developing relationship. For such a hard-edged character, it was these moments of vulnerability that helped viewers to connect with her, and one of the reasons the show lasted for seven series on ITV.
One of the only people who can tolerate Sabatini is theatre administrator Joyce, her best friend (played by Marji Campi), with whom she would often be found trading gossip and salacious stories. The other main member of staff was put upon Sister Cheryl Patching, played by Suzette Llewellyn who, in 1991, co-founded Bibi Crew with Joanne Campbell, Judith Jacob, Janet Kay, Josephine Melville, Beverley Michaels and Suzanne Packer. They were the first comedy troupe in Britain to be made up entirely of black women.
More often than not, Sabatini's anger was aimed at George Hope-Wynne and Neil Copeland, played by David Conville and Emlyn Price. An early exchange from the first episode sets the tone for the series:
SABATINI: I must say what a pleasure it is to see you upright, one almost gets so nervous that you may get flambéed one day by an unguarded electrical spark. I will not have you filling my houseman's head with sloppy surgery, God knows there's limited space as it is.
HOPE WYNN: Sloppy?
SABATINI: Sloppy I said and sloppy I meant. If I had said excellent I would now be eating a bar of soap.
This kind of barbed badinage formed the majority of the exchanges in Surgical Spirit, which, although it could come across as rather mean spirited at times, did allow for a very high gag rate.
Plots throughout the series include clashes with new staff members and Sabatini's struggle to advance in her career whilst juggling a divorce and her burgeoning new relationship.
Surgical Spirit faced the same dilemma most hospital based shows do, especially sitcoms - how to generate laughs in a situation where they are normally few and far between? It helped that there was a regular turnover of guest actors to keep things fresh: The Holiday Job, an episode from Series 3, provided the debut television role for Catherine Tate. Other notable guest stars who popped up throughout the series include Demon Headmaster star Terrence Hardiman, Men Behaving Badly's Valerie Minifie and Only Fools And Horses' Kenneth Macdonald.
Sabatini and Haslam finally tied the knot at the end of the sixth series, though in typical sitcom fashion, things do not go to plan. Sabatini's son Daniel, played by Andrew Groves, eventually joined the hospital staff, which lead to heightened tensions throughout.
A review in The Independent once observed that "the problem with Surgical Spirit is that with minor adjustment it could be re-routed to a car factory or a coal-mine: no one does any work, so only the costumes denote place". While this is true to a certain extent, it not only misunderstands the point of sitcom - strong characters who can be placed in any situation and react in the same, believable ways - but also does significant disservice to Learmouth, whose consummate comic craft is evident in every episode.
As later series came about Learmouth was busy with other projects like Briefest Encounter, a play about a disastrous date written for the Rik Mayall Presents series in 1993. He thus stepped away from Surgical Spirit, ushering in a number of other writers. The most prolific of these was ex-Goodie Graeme Garden, who scripted five episodes. Garden was perhaps the most qualified, having studied medicine at Cambridge and King's College, and written a large number of scripts, usually with Bill Oddie, for Doctor In The House, Doctor At Large and Doctor In Charge. Other writers included Paul McKenzie and Annie Bruce, who would go on to write episodes of Desmond's.
The hospital has long proved fertile ground for comedy, in fact. Bill Lawrence's Scrubs lead the way for nine seasons in America (2001 - 2010), also growing into a popular show worldwide. In Britain, as well as some runs of the various Doctor series mentioned above, there have been the likes of Eric Chappell's Only When I Laugh, which ran for four series; Fintan Coyle's little remembered surreal sitcom tlc, which starred Reece Shearsmith, Alexander Armstrong and Richard Griffiths, ran for a single series in 2002; and who could forget the adventures of Matthew Holness's Dr Rick Dagless in 2004's Garth Marenghi's Darkplace? In the same year Victoria Pile brought her own surreal slant to the medical experience in Green Wing. 2015, meanwhile, saw Pile and Robert Harley co-create The Delivery Man, a sweet natured sitcom in which Darren Boyd and Aisling Bea played midwives.
Out of all of them, though, Getting On is perhaps the most notable hospital sitcom of recent years. First aired in 2009, it saw Jo Brand, Vicki Pepperdine and Joanna Scanlan shine a brutally realistic a spotlight on the harsh conditions of the NHS, infused with a streak of the sarcastic, black humour for which Brand is renowned. Stand up Ricky Grover was among the supporting cast, and it offered a rare directorial outing for actor Peter Capaldi, who won an Oscar for writing and directing short film Franz Kafka's It's A Wonderful Life in 1995.
Surgical Spirit would be McAuliffe's only leading sitcom role, though she has recently taken on Stephanie Cole's role of Diana in a stage production of Michael Aitkens's Waiting For God. Duncan Preston continued to appear alongside Victoria Wood in the likes of Pat And Margaret and as officious handyman Stan in dinnerladies. Peter Learmouth, meanwhile, went on to create period sitcom Let Them Eat Cake for French & Saunders in 1999.
Thankfully, the complete seven series of Surgical Spirit were released by (the now sadly defunct) Network in 2010. Despite running for such a long period, the sitcom is rarely remembered or repeated: a huge shame because Peter Learmouth's writing is razor sharp and, as Sabatini, McAuliffe dominates the screen in the great tradition of sitcom antiheroes.
Where to start?
Series 3, Episode 1 - The Holiday Job
As well as being the television debut of Catherine Tate, this episode is the perfect coalescence of Learmouth's writing and MacAuliffe's barnstorming central performance: Daniel takes a job at the hospital, leading to a fractious fallout between Shelia and the rest of the staff.
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Love comedy? Find out moreSurgical Spirit - The Complete Series
Consultant surgeon Sheila Sabatini rules her operating theatre with a sharp tongue and a withering sense of humour. Her dedication and determination to succeed in a maledominated world make her a force to be reckoned with, and her colleagues at the Gillies Hospital have learned the hard way not to mess with her! Sheila's intimidating manner may hide a soft centre, but only those who dare to get close enough discover that; they include administrator and best friend, Joyce, and anaesthetist Jonathan Haslam, a man brave enough to pursue a romantic relationship with the spiky Mrs. Sabatini...
Nichola McAuliffe gives a memorable performance as Sheila Sabatini, with Duncan Preston (Victoria Wood: As Seen On TV) starring as Jonathan Haslam. Featuring scripts by Graeme Garden among other contributors, Surgical Spirit was a huge success with the viewing public, running for an impressive seven series between 1989 and 1995.
This release collects all 50 episodes from the seven series on DVD for the first time.
First released: Sunday 3rd October 2010
DVD- Distributor: Network
- Region: 2
- Discs: 8
- Catalogue: 7953295
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