Citadel, The

1 9 8 3 (UK)
10 x 55 minute episodes

This 10-part BBC series featured Chariots of Fire star Ben Cross as young working-class Scottish doctor Andrew Manson, starting his career in the Welsh mining valleys.

The series followed Andrew’s progress from South Wales to London’s Harley Street as he battled against medical malpractice, corruption and greed. His idealism and earnestness frequently led him into quarrels – even with the pretty school teacher, Christine Barlow (Clare Higgins), who became his wife.

Gareth Thomas portrayed Dr Philip Denny, Andrew’s friend, associate and co-conspirator in their plot to dynamite a polluted well to halt a typhoid epidemic in a mining village.

After a string of frustrating medical jobs, Dr Manson established his own practice and became a social and money-making success – but at the expense of his ideals.

The series was based on stories by AJ Cronin (as was Dr Finlay’s Casebook), who was himself a qualified doctor. Indeed, The Citadel was as much an autobiography of Cronin as a documentary on the less than healthy state of medical care and attitudes in the 1920s and 1930s.

Many of the Welsh valley scenes in the series were filmed in the Tredegar area where the young Dr Cronin first worked. They even included the house where he lived.

The Citadel was broadcast in the US from November 1983 to January 1984 by PBS television as part of Masterpiece Theatre.

Ben Cross died in August 2020, aged 72.

Dr Andrew Manson
Ben Cross
Christine Barlow/Manson
Clare Higgins
Dr Philip Denny
Gareth Thomas
Sir Robert Abbey
John Welsh
David Hope
David Gwillim
Freddy Hamson
Michael Cochrane
Con Boland
Niall Buggy
Frances Lawrence
Carmen Du Sautoy
Dr Llewellyn
Raymond Bowers
Blodwen Page
Cynthia Grenville
Dr Page
Tenniel Evans
Mr Owen
Ray Smith
Charles Ivory
John Nettleton
Dr Watkins
Richard Davies
Paul Deedman
Nicholas Day
Nurse Sharp
Avril Elgar
Annie Hughes
Beryl Nesbitt

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