Brian Kellett

Sirens paramedic Brian Kellett reveals all

Brian - whose blog and subsequent book, Blood, Sweat and Tea, are the basis of Channel 4's new drama Sirens - says: "You might think the worst moments in my career have come from the terrible car pile-ups or from all the fighting and abusive language. Actually, no. The thing for me was nursing homes."

The Mirror, 29th July 2011

Created by Brian Fillis and inspired by paramedic Brian Kellett's blog and subsequent book, Sirens has a slightly stylised, "written" air about it, but once you adjust to that, this six-part comedy-drama is a treat. In tonight's opener, we meet Stuart, Rachid and Ashley, three paramedics who would seem like sorry specimens of 21st-century British manhood if they weren't performing heroic frontline services on the drunken streets of West Yorkshire. After a dramatic opening, a counsellor advises them to be prepared for the emotional rollercoaster of an adrenaline rush, horniness, then depression, but Stuart is determined to be "master of my own biology".

David Stubbs, The Guardian, 27th June 2011

It started life in 2003 as a blog by London ambulance technician Brian Kellett.

Back then, his musings on the job were entitled Random Acts of Reality. It became a book, Blood, Sweat and Tea, a radio play and now it's been turned into a TV series.

Even before it's aired here in Britain, an American version is already in the ­pipeline.

Written by Tony Basgallop, (Teachers, Hotel Babylon) this comedy drama is a strangely ­schizophrenic production.

On the one hand it seems to be straining to be a rude Channel 4 sitcom, filled with the usual quota of very bad language and sex scenes both gay and straight.

The opening line, "One female, mid-20s, looks like a slightly older Miley Cyrus...", played out against the medical drama cliche of slo-mo heroes and a lush ballad on the soundtrack, certainly leads you to expect the rest of the episode to be just as funny.

But it's also got a psychology ­textbook in its back pocket plus a brain and a conscience - three things that get in the way of comedy.

Our trio of paramedics, Stuart, Ashley and Rachid, played by Rhys Thomas, Richard Madden and Kayvan Novak, have attended a bad ­road-traffic accident and have been sent for counselling.

Warned of the mood swings that adrenaline coursing through their bodies will cause, Stuart decides to fight it - just to prove that he's more than a bunch of chemical reactions.

How much of tonight's first episode is based on real life is debatable, but it you want to wade through eight years of blogs to find out, then by all means, be my guest.

Jane Simon, The Mirror, 27th June 2011