“Twenty-four hours, seven days a week,” says the receptionist, before putting the phone down and turning to her colleague. “I love that question, ‘When’s your opening hours?’”
So begins the seventh series of 24 Hours in A&E (Channel 4). The scenery has changed, slightly – we are now in St George’s emergency department in south-west London rather than King’s College hospital in the south-east – but the makers have, refreshingly, had the confidence not to fix something that isn’t broken, so the format remains the same. Tales of two major events – in this episode, a motorbike rider who has been brought in after a crash with half her leg amputated at the scene and a boy with learning difficulties and severe epilepsy admitted after a massive fit – are interspersed with staff talking about their work, and relatives talking about their injured loved ones, while the hospital drama is leavened with scenes of the treatment of someone’s more minor injury. This week, the latter came courtesy of the marvellously stroppy and ungrateful little madam Tina, who had a sewing needle stuck in her foot and whose mother was on the other end of the phone telling her that she would probably die from an infection if the doctors – who would want to hack her to pieces to get it out – didn’t kill her first. Afterwards, the saintly registrar who deals with her, Mo Tahir, just grins and shrugs. “Mothers,” he says. “They always have the edge on you.”
The parents of the boy with epilepsy speak briefly and eloquently, outlining in a few scattered minutes the grief and joy brought to them by their son. As the bike rider’s life hangs in the balance, her grandparents talk about her with such love and pride that you wonder how they will bear it if she dies.
It remains a wonderful series that allows everyone and everything time to breathe. The stories unfurl slowly, with no sense of producers gnashing their teeth in the wings and cursing people for not getting on with it, and, of course, are all the more moving for it. Everyone – even the Tinas – are allowed to keep their dignity and their humanity. The only overtly manipulative move is to withhold the news of the biker Kerry’s fate until the customary reveal at the end – she has survived, she is mobile, she is happy, she is running a 10k race next year.
That all this is played out against a backdrop of free healthcare, that miracle of modern civilisation currently being stripped and sold for parts, adds a dimension all of its own. But until that process is complete, life at the A&E goes on, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Over to The Great Fire (ITV), where even more of the set is now ablaze, gadzooks, and the smell of roasting ham is enough to make you quite delirious. King Charles and his men are gazing at a map of exposition in consternation – “The fire is spreading east and the wind is getting stronger!” “Twelve hours until it reaches St Paul’s!” – while Sarah is still trying to half-inch the box of Catholic secrets for the dastardly Lord Denton (Charles Dance, with a wig that should have separate billing), who has clapped her son David in a now very smoky Newgate prison to ensure her compliance.
Fortunately, Thomas (baker, brother-in-law, luuurves her, hasn’t given her the letter that says her husband, his brother, is alive) arrives in time to save David – with the ’elp of a convict with an ’eart o’ gold – and send him north, ahead of the flames. Phew!
Meanwhile! Pepys’s wife Lizzie is moving out of the marital home – partly because of the raging fire, partly because of Pepys’s raging libido, which she now knows has been exercised with Mrs Bagwell. She heads for her dancing master’s house, partly because she fancies him and partly perhaps because, like the rest of us, she fancies a laugh at the way he pronounces her husband’s name as “Meester Pips”. They nearly Do It but at the last moment – affrighted either by the sight of the bed or by the fact that his blouson sleeves are bigger than hers – she decides against it and runs off.
Meanwhile (mark II)! Lord Denton has discovered that Hanford (David Schofield) and the king’s brother, the Duke of York, are in Catholic conspiratorial cahoots and Charles D and David S have to have an act-off in Hanford’s hall. It’s a draw, so Denton knifes him and hurries back to the king to explain the duke’s treachery and his theory that the conspirators persuaded Sarah to start the fire to distract attention while they put their plans in motion.
The blameless Sarah has fortunately escaped his clutches by this point and has met up with Thomas. Their passion overcomes them and soon they are fiddling while London burns. Tune in next week for the last part of the combustible fun.
