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    Nostalgia Central
    Home»Television»Drama
    Drama TV Shows - 1970s TV Shows - 1980s 5 Mins Read

    Young Doctors, The

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    1 9 7 6 – 1 9 8 1 (Australia)
    1396 x 30 minute episodes

    Back in the late 70s in Australia, you could watch The Young Doctors and either ogle Delvene Delaney or actually try to follow the plots.

    The show debuted at 7.30 pm on Monday 8 November 1976 on the Nine Network with an hour-long opening episode (followed by 30-minute episodes each weeknight) and featured a great smorgasbord of gorgeous babes.

    No doubt this fact greatly contributed to the show’s success, as the acting, scripts and sets were all of the extremely dreadful variety. Nevertheless, the show ran five nights a week until 1981, primarily to young male viewers.

    This truly woeful soap opera featured the lives and loves of the young staff in the Albert Memorial Hospital – now there’s an original concept . . . white-coated slap and tickle among good-looking young people in a big city hospital.

    Sex scenes were not permitted by the producers, however. The kiss was it.

    Accordingly, the emphasis was on romance and relationships, while divorce, sex, and medical or social problems were all off-limits for this deliberately lightweight early evening serial.

    On the other hand, bombings, shootings and invasions by dangerous psychopaths were all permissible ways of removing regular characters or rearranging relationships.

    The medical staff seemed to suffer chronically from weddings, frequently from separations, but never from divorce.

    youngdoctors_444Main characters included the hospital superintendent Dr Brian Denham (Michael Beecher), whose wife Laura (Joanna Moore-Smith) was having an affair with another doctor, head surgeon Dr Raymond Shaw (Alfred Sandor).

    There was a clutch of young resident doctors, swinging their stethoscopes and waggling their syringes, and a bevvy of nurses headed by Sister Scott (Cornelia Frances, pictured), who was a steely disciplinarian.

    Among the doctors, there were the ambitious one, the over-confident one, one destined to make a tragic mistake, the playboy, and the naive female doctor (Dr Henderson) who found herself in emotional situations she couldn’t control.

    Female viewers experienced hot flushes watching the men and warm sympathy watching the nurses.

    They even liked bosomy nurse Jojo Adams, played by Delvene Delaney, known for her comedy sketches on The Paul Hogan Show.

    When pop star Mark Holden joined the cast to play young medic Greg Mason and Spanish-born Tony Alvarez joined as Dr Tony Garcia, the producers seemed to have performed heart surgery on all the fans – even though no one in their right mind would trust either of them with an Elastoplast.

    The most popular ‘oldie’ on the show was Gwen Plumb as gossipy kiosk lady Ada Simmonds. And perhaps the favourite young woman was sweet, sincere Sister Tania Livingston, played by Judy McBurney. She married Dr Garcia.

    The Young Doctors has the dubious distinction in Australian television drama of never winning any award whatsoever.

    Doors and walls wobbled, boom mic’s came into shot and virtually everything that ever happened took place in one operating theatre, one patient ward, one L-shaped hallway, a couple of offices, at Ada Simmons’ kiosk or in the wine bar across the road.

    youngdoctors&grundy
    The cast with Reg Grundy on the set.

    Nonetheless, it ran for 1,396 episodes and – until this record was eclipsed by A Country Practice in 1991 – The Young Doctors had been the longest-running drama serial in the history of Australian television.

    The show also featured Karen Pini, Kim Wran, Judi Connelli, Lyn James, Judy Lynne, Rebecca Gilling, Joanna Moore-Smith, Margaret Nelson, Karen Peterson, Susanne Stuart, Ros Wood and Bartholomew John.

    Comedian ‘Ugly’ Dave Gray’s character Bunny, the debt-ridden alcoholic who ran the bar across the road from the hospital, was memorably killed off behind the bar by a heart attack after 65 episodes – so Gray could join the nightly quiz show Blankety Blanks.

    youngdoctorsDr Brian Denham 
    Michael Beecher
    Dr Raymond Shaw 

    Alfred Sandor
    Sister Tania Livingston 

    Judy McBurney
    Dr Graham Steele 

    Tim Page
    Sister Gibbs
    Susanne Stuart
    Orderly Dennis Jamison
    Chris King
    Ada Simmonds 

    Gwen Plumb
    Helen Gordon
    Lyn James
    Sister Grace Scott 

    Cornelia Frances
    Hilary Templeton 

    Abigail
    Laura Denham
    Joanna Moore-Smith
    Nurse Jo Jo Adams 

    Delvene Delaney
    Dr Greg Mason 

    Mark Holden
    Dr Rothwell
    John Walton
    Dr Tony Garcia 

    Tony Alvarez
    Dr Gail Henderson 

    Peita Toppano
    Nurse Sherrie Andrews
    Karen Pini
    Nurse Virginia Mason
    Rosie Bailey
    Julie Holland 

    Lisa Aldenhoven
    Dr Russell Edwards 

    Peter Cousens
    Dr Jim Howard
    John Dommett
    Lisa Brooks 

    Paula Duncan
    Chris Piper
    Bartholomew John
    Ken Hansen 

    Joe Hasham
    Jill Gordon 

    Joanne Samuel
    Caroline Morgan
    Kim Wran
    Nurse Liz Kennedy 

    Rebecca Gilling
    Kim Barrington
    Lynda Stoner
    Bunny Howard
    Ugly Dave Gray
    Nurse Maggie Gordon 

    Jacki Woodburne
    Toni Sheffield 

    Tottie Goldsmith
    Vivien Jeffries 

    Diana McLean
    Sister Eve Turner/Steele 

    Anne Lucas
    Susan Richards
    Judy Lynne
    Grahame Steele 

    Tim Page
    Ted Wilcox 

    Frank Lloyd
    Dr Mike Newman 

    Peter Bensley
    Dr Peter Holland 

    Peter Lochran
    Dr John Forrest 
    Alan Dale
    Frances Taylor
    Briony Behets
    Kate Rhodes
    Ros Wood
    Dr Ben Fielding 

    Eric Oldfield
    Malcolm Fielding
    Robin Stewart

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