Casualty airs Saturday 5 September 2026 on BBC One
Dylan faces off against armed police (Pictures: BBC)
The anniversary episodes have the scale and visual ambition of a feature film. What was your vision when you first came on board?
It was to make Casualty the movie. I really wanted to give the show the scale and ambition that it deserved. I did the 30th anniversary episodes, where we crashed a helicopter into the hospital, and I thought, “Surely, we can’t get any bigger than that.” We wanted everything to feel exciting and cinematic but never lose the focus of the human story. As much as this is an adventure story and a tragedy, it’s here to honour the amazing people of the NHS who save lives every day.
How did you approach creating a major incident that felt both cinematic and emotionally grounded?
I never sacrifice reality for spectacle. Things should always feel grounded, but especially Casualty, because it should feel like it’s happening for real. There’s a lot of time and effort spent on making things feel as authentic as we can.
The first episode, to me, felt like modern Casualty, because the show has changed a lot over its 40 years, and today it’s much more immediate and relatable. There’s a real electric pulse going through the whole thing. The second episode feels like a classic episode of Casualty, because you’ve got the big stunt and the big emotional set piece. It was like honouring the new contemporary version of Casualty as well as the classic version.
What were the biggest production challenges involved in bringing such a huge event to life?
The obvious one was dropping an ambulance off the side of a cliff. Making that feel real and of a grand scale was so important. The underwater tank is six metres deep, but the ambulance was 6.5 metres deep, so we knew we couldn’t fully submerge it. We came up with a plan to cut off the front of the ambulance and put that on the bottom of the water, but there’s no end to the tiny little things you could never prepare for. We always find a way of making it work.
People think directing is just a creative endeavour, but 60% of it is practical decisions and 40% is creative decisions. These episodes felt like a massive task, but I think we managed to get away with it.
How closely did you work with emergency service advisers to ensure authenticity?
We worked very closely with them. We try to get the scripts and the authenticity as close as we can. A lot of it comes down to advising us on little things on the floor – things that you could never anticipate. There are a thousand choices every hour when you’re shooting, and you try to catch as many of them as you can in the preparation. But, like I said, it always comes back to authenticity.
What responsibility comes with directing Casualty’s 40th anniversary episodes?
More than anything, it’s just an absolute privilege. I’ve been really lucky to have worked on some of the previous special episodes. After directing the 30th anniversary special, to be back and entrusted with the 40th has been amazing. I think they knew that I wouldn’t let them down, because I absolutely love working on Casualty. The show has changed a lot over the time I’ve been here, but in the last five or six years, we’ve really tried to push the show into a sort of hyper- realism. These days, it feels more real, more urgent, more relatable. To be asked to do the 40th anniversary episodes was an honour and a thrill.
What does directing a programme with this kind of cultural footprint mean to you personally?
I’m thrilled, because from when I was a kid, Casualty was always the big Saturday night show. I’m a guy from Wigan with three GCSEs, I never thought I’d ever get to direct TV, and I’m directing a show that we’d watch with my family. So, it really means a lot. I was guided brilliantly by our amazing producer, Gwen Roberts, and [Executive Producer] Roxanne Harvey and [Series Producer] Liza Mellody, who are brilliant cheerleaders, always supporting me and giving me great feedback. I feel very supported on Casualty. We deliver because we all know what show we’re making. And this is the biggest, boldest two episodes of the show I’ve ever worked on.
Casualty airs on BBC One and catch up via iPlayer – Classic visits air on Drama and can be caught up on via U