As BBC One’s flagship medical drama Casualty reaches its milestone 40th anniversary, long-serving stars Elinor Lawless (Stevie Nash) and William Beck (Dylan Keogh) have opened up about the physically demanding stunts, character dynamics, and enduring legacy of Holby ED.
The anniversary special sees Stevie Nash trapped inside a submerged ambulance—a sequence that pushed Elinor Lawless far outside her comfort zone: ‘I’m not somebody who naturally takes to water. If I’m thrown into water or into the deep end of a pool, my instinct is to breathe in. So, I had to retrain my whole body to be in a survival mode.’
Describing the psychological side of filming the critical underwater scenes, Elinor shared: ‘When filming the sequence where the water is rising and reaches a critical point, you imagine yourself in that situation. You’re faced with something you can’t fight, so it wasn’t hard to go there mentally. I think those situations are something every audience member can grab onto and identify with.’
For William, whose character Dylan Keogh finds himself at the heart of the crisis, the 40th-anniversary scripts offered a rare chance to showcase vulnerability: ‘I’ve been on the show a long time and I have indeed seen a few major incidents, but these episodes had Dylan at the centre of it in a way that he hasn’t been before.’
Addressing what it means to lead the department during such a catastrophic event, William noted: ‘With Dylan, there’s a real opportunity to explore what happens when the person everyone relies on is pushed to his limits… It really is pinch-yourself stuff.’
The friendship between Stevie and Dylan remains an emotional anchor throughout the high-stakes drama. Speaking on their on-screen chemistry, Elinor explained: ‘What I love about it is that some people need it to be a friendship, some people need it to be a relationship, but Stevie and Dylan recognise that there’s a meeting of minds. These characters are two sides of one coin. Partly because
William added: Elinor is great, and Stevie is just such a brilliant character. If you put a character like Stevie in a room and let her do her thing, sparks are going to fly.’
Reflecting on why Casualty continues to connect with viewers after four decades, Elinor believes it comes down to flawed humanity: ‘Audiences don’t just want to watch stories about superheroes, they want to watch stories about superheroes that are flawed. They want to see people who are messy, imperfect and complicated.’ William pointed to the unique, universally relatable setting of the NHS Emergency Department: ‘The Emergency Department is somewhere that we all have experience of, most frequently when we really don’t want it. We’re thrown in with people who are entirely at random, which is such an amazing environment to make a drama.’
Casualty airs on BBC One and catch up via iPlayer – Classic visits air on Drama and can be caught up on via U