Casualty

Seeing as the old thread was archived I thought I would start a new one.

The description to tonight's episode "Polly's life hangs in the balance in this special real-time episode of the medical drama. Will the gang get to her before she bleeds to death?" mentions special real-time episode.
I was wondering if any member can explain to me what this means as I am a little bewildered.

It'll be like an episode of 24 - fifty fictional minutes playing out over fifty broadcast minutes.

David

In a normal episode of Casualty, you would see Polly being carried into an ambulance and the next minute she's arrived at the hospital. The intervening five minutes would not be shown. However, in a real-time episode you see everything. If the ambulance takes five minutes to reach casualty in real life, it will take five minutes on screen, making the drama feel more realistic.

Of course, there will in fact be no ambulance. She's in the same building as the Emergency Department.

I know that you probably don't even watch the show and this was just an example, by the way.

Just caught up with last Saturday's episode. Is that the last we see of Miriam? It's very sad if it is and was such a strange exit.

I doubt it will be, somehow.

I've just read an article on Digital Spy regarding up-coming storylines on and the future of Casualty but there's no mention of the move to Cardiff. Has it been confirmed they will move for the next series starting in September?

The move is confirmed here as taking place in August 2011:

https://careers.bbc.co.uk/fe/tpl_bbc01.asp?newms=jj&id=39059

Do we know If exteriors will still be shot in Bristol?

I think it's an awful shame Bristol is losing stuff so the BBC can seem more representative of Wales, when Wales already did OK.

Isn't the move as much to do with the BBC building a new HD drama production village in Cardiff, using economies of scale by co-siting with Doctor Who, Torchwood, Pobol y Cwm etc.? At the moment Casualty is SD isn't it?

Whilst making more networked programmes in the nations and outside of London is part of the BBC's strategy to be less "London-centric" there are also major cost-cutting exercises taking place, and have been for a number of years. Co-siting drama on a single, new, HD-capable, site is probably seen as making sense financially over upgrading the Bristol Casualty-only facilities?

Presumably Bristol and Cardiff are close-enough that freelance crew can still work on the series when it moves?

I understand the reasons for this. I just think the whole lets do 50% of everything out of London is all about symbolism, I just think BBC management thinks that having a place up North, in Wales and Scotland will fit the bill and make the whole nation will feel better represented by the Beeb. When in reality the South West and the Midlands have both lost TV and radio production due to the strategy.

How long till Doctors leaves Birmingham, I wonder.

The last scenes are being filmed in Bristol today, ahead of it's move to Cardiff.

More info here: http://bbc.in/qvmQX4

I wonder how they will explain the new exterior and interior sets? Last time the exterior set moved from the City of Bristol College in 2002 to a trading estate in Lawrence Hill they had a car crash into the entrance, which then caught fire.