Takin’ Over the Asylum

1 9 9 4 (UK)
6 x 50 minute episodes

Alcoholic double glazing salesman “Ready” Eddie McKenna (Ken Stott) takes a part-time side-gig as a hospital radio DJ at St Jude’s Psychiatric Hospital in Glasgow.

Eddie recruits some of the inmates as station employees and with the help of good-hearted manic depressive Campbell Bain (David Tenant) – who appoints himself as a trainee DJ – and schizophrenic Fergus (Angus Macfadyen) he resurrects the dusty, dilapidated radio station.

Ruth McCabe is superb as the OCD-ridden Rosalie who turns out to be fantastic at filing and sorting all the records. Elizabeth Spriggs plays Eddie’s Lithuanian grandmother, with whom he lives.

The scenes in the hospital were filmed in Gartloch Psychiatric Hospital, in Glasgow, before it closed. Many of the extras in these scenes were former patients.

Eddie McKenna
Ken Stott
Campbell Bain
David Tennant
Francine
Katy Murphy
Rosalie
Ruth McCabe
Grandma
Elizabeth Spriggs
Isabel
Angela Bruce
Stuart
Kenneth Bryans
Alastair
Matt Costello
Billy
Derek Anders
Hector
Gavin Mitchell
Margaret
Molly Innes
Griffin
Roy Hanlon
Sheila
Nell Brennan
MacAteer
Neil McKinven
Jane
Caroline Paterson
Fergus
Angus Macfadyen
Evelyn
Sandra Voe
Lavery
Ronnie McCann
Paula
Arabella Weir
Webster
Paul Blair

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