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> Catch up with the cast of Porters
Catch up with the cast of Porters
Whether it's a urine sample, a complaining patient or a dead body – if it's in St. Etheldreda's Hospital, you'll need a porter to move it. Unfortunately, they've usually got better things to do. But enough of this introduction, let's catch up with the cast of Porters.
HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE BACK?
ED EASTON (SIMON PORTER)
It's so nice being back with everybody. Claudia and Susie are so much fun to work with. It feels weird coming back because it's like how, what was all of this? It feels weird fitting back in to all of it. It doesn't feel like work when you're working with good people.
CLAUDIA JESSIE (NURSE LUCY)
I'm really pleased and mostly pleased because I love everybody on the job so I get to see beautiful people again. I just think people are way more comfortable with each other. We kind of connected really quickly on the first series and so this year it's coming in with that but with a bigger deeper understanding of our characters and more playing with the script. Probably because you know each other better you have more freedom to know what they're going to do. I feel like I know what Ed's going to do as Simon, and I feel like Susie and I have an understanding between the two of us so it makes it more natural. And then Danny (Mays) slips in really beautifully.
SUSAN WOKOMA (FRANKIE)
It feels like all the characters have remained emotionally in the same place, and the exact same silliness in the first three episodes is expanded over six.
RUTGER HAUER (TILLMAN)
Wonderful, crazy, nice, warm, funny.
WHAT'S IT LIKE TO BE BACK IN A HOSPITAL?
It feels great, really good. It's sort of weird because the first day we filmed on a golf course so it felt like having class outside but you haven't gone in to school yet. It's really nice and fun to be back in a hospital. What does everyone else say?!
SALLY LINDSAY (SIMON'S MUM)
Well I think shooting in a real hospital is quite amazing because the atmosphere is exactly the same as a real hospital so there are no frills or lovely places to sit. It's sort of like working in an NHS hospital so you think blimey those NHS staff really get it don't they.
SINEAD KEENAN (DR BARTHOLOMEW)
It's not necessarily a hospital I would want to be treated in with all due respect! Certainly they're a lively set of porters. I would steer well clear essentially.
DANIEL MAYS (ANTHONY DE LA MER)
The first impressions of the hospital is that they've hit it out of the park to be quite honest - it's obviously a working hospital, that's the first thing that hit me when I arrived for day one. It looks great; the sets and the way that the whole world has been realised is second to none. It just adds that air of authenticity to the whole show.
TELL US A BIT ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER AND WHAT THEY GO THROUGH?
SANJEEV BHASKAR (DR. PRADEEP)
He's a mad character that pops up in very mad situations. So whether it's him having a breakdown, whether it's him getting involved in a sperm donation, maybe it's him losing his nerve as a surgeon - all of those things are incredibly fluid and actually what's one of the fun things actually is that it changes on the day as well. It's a very open set. Vadim Jean who's directing it keeps it very light and very fun but very open to ideas coming in and stuff like that. So even though I have a rough idea of what Mr Pradeep goes through in this, I have no idea where it will end up.
So I play Simon's mum, Ed's character. And Simon's mum Linda is quite voracious sexually. She has a boyfriend who's she's madly in love with called Muz, and they're trying for a baby so there's lots of activity going on right over Simon's head, in their bedroom right next to his room. It's all mortifying.
I don't think anything's changed for him in the interim period. He's literally stayed exactly where he is. So basically his character arc is remaining where he is at all times, which is a state of panic. So much this time that it feels like the writer hates me with the amount of stuff Simon goes through!
She does tend to just speed in and speed out - it's like Dr Bartholomew has another show going on somewhere else. She's always mid flounce between one ward to another or one patient to another and she's kind of got to that point where she clearly i s/isn't?? (sorry I can't work out what she says - I'm assuming it's isn't by what she says?!) very good at her job, worked in the NHS for a good while so knows exactly how it does and doesn't work, and basically it's head down, get the job done to the best of her ability . But I'd say she's probably had about five hours sleep in the last year and a half.
Maybe he has a sort of burnout where he decides that he feels old and he doesn't know enough so he decides to go and see an old friend in Nepal that happens to be the Dalai Llama. And the Dalai Llama is quite a part of the film so I think that's very funny.
Anthony is the new porter on the block. I would probably describe him as a jack-of-all- trades and he'd probably describe himself as that. He's a very funny character hopefully but he's kind of a complete and utter bullshitter. He professes to everyone that he comes from a military background and he's served lots of tours of duty in Basra and places like that. He's very keen on psychology and will try to get in to peoples' minds. He's very popular around the hospital and doing deals and everything so he has this kind of sanctimonious egocentric air to him, which obviously lends itself to him hopefully being very funny. I personally think he just lives at home with his mum and it's all just bullshit But that's a great thing and I think what we've tried to play with throughout the series is do you believe him or do you not?
So Frankie when we meet her she's not very happy with Danny's character Anthony being in the hospital because they are past rivals. So you see her trying to get around or over that. Then a whole host of things happen that are really cool. There's an underground women's fight club in the hospital, there's a serial killer in the hospital that Frankie has to get to grips with to say the least. And then we find out that actually there's more to Frankie than we thought in that she is a very capable medical student should she want to go to medical school.
SIOBHAN MCSWEENEY (ALICE)
I play Alice who's the head of security and she's a gentle, kind, soft soul - but she's not, she's an absolute monster of a woman, which is wonderful to play! She's very aggressive and hard and takes Her job very seriously.
I feel like she's a lot more knowing than she was last year. She sort of marches to the beat of her own drum and where I feel like last year everything was so innocent and oblivious, I feel like she seems a lot more knowing this year and more willing to play with Simon's emotions and embarrass him a bit more.
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About Porters
Brand new comedy starring Ed Easton, Susan Wokoma, Claudia Jessie and Rutger Hauer.