That's sad news. He's been in the show since day one! I wonder if Charlie will be next to follow?
No he hasn't! Josh joined in series 4 (1989); the original male paramedic was Andrew Ponting, although Ponting did look vaguely similar to Josh. Ponting left midway through series 2 to be replaced by Keith Cotterill and Shirley Franklin, Josh replaced Shirley in series 4 after which Keith left.
Even though Josh hasn't been there since day one, he has managed to appear in more episodes than any other character, including Charlie.
I thought tonight's Casualty was absolutely awful - especially for a Christmas special! Watching 3 versions of the same story over 3 times was yawnsome in itself. Also, the eerie music over the action and the way they introduced us to each "character" separately where we just watched what happened to them for the next 15 minutes - totally unlike Casualty and very offputting. The camerawork was also heinous!
The camera work as such wasn't awful, but they used the Dutch Angle far too much, it isn't designed to be used as much as that. It was a very interesting episode, they must have a new director and writer as I haven't seen something like that being used in an episode of Casualty before, it was more like an episode of Lost but in a hospital. The repeating story line was interesting too, but it was slightly over the top, especially when they slowed it down, stopped then rewound it, a simple pan to the next person and a flash would have worked much better.
The camera work as such wasn't awful, but they used the Dutch Angle far too much, it isn't designed to be used as much as that. It was a very interesting episode, they must have a new director and writer as I haven't seen something like that being used in an episode of Casualty before, it was more like an episode of Lost but in a hospital. The repeating story line was interesting too, but it was slightly over the top, especially when they slowed it down, stopped then rewound it, a simple pan to the next person and a flash would have worked much better.
I guess that they wanted to make it clear what it was that they were doing.
I wasn't convinced by the OTT effects and camera work to begin with, but I think they actually worked quite well to display the psychological state of the characters - besides i'm sure it is just a one off for the christmas special - quite brave of them really.
I do like the triple viewpoint storylines, in fact The Simpsons, Run Lola Run parody is one of my favourite episodes of the last few years.