1. The character of Charlie Fairhead (played by Derek Thompson), CASUALTY’s longest-serving member of staff, was based on Pete Salt, then medical advisor to the show. Pete still consults on the show and manages to juggle working as an Emergency Care Practitioner in Bristol with his work on CASUALTY. Pete is the only person to have worked on every single episode of CASUALTY.
2. The character Josh (played by Ian Bleasdale) is based on Clive Haddrell, a paramedic advisor who checks on paramedic accuracy in the scripts.
3. One of the possible titles for CASUALTY was ‘Front Line’.
4. Holby City is a fictional town located in the fictional county of Wyvern, imagined to be in South West England, not far from the Welsh border.
5. Ian Bleasdale has been in more episodes of CASUALTY than any other actor, despite arriving on the show five years after Derek Thompson (Charlie).
6. Clive Mantle is the only actor who has had a regular cast role in both CASUALTY and HOLBY CITY as Mike Barratt.
7. In 1998, the cast of CASUALTY sang ‘Everlasting Love’ at Charlie and Baz’s wedding. The song was then released as a single and reached Number 5 in the charts, also making a performance on Top of the Pops.
8. Casualty has twice filmed outside of the UK – first in a two-part special set in Australia in Series 14, and in the Series 18 Christmas episode, Baz and Charlie headed for Lapland.
9. Both Cathy Shipton and Derek Thompson have met their partners through working on the show. Derek met actress Dee Sadler when she had a guest appearance in Series 2, whilst Cathy met Christopher Guard when he played gay nurse Ken Hodges in Series 8.
10. There have been six onscreen character weddings; the first being when Ash and Laura married at the end of Series 10.
11. The first onscreen character birth was Baz, who gave birth to Louis at the beginning of Series 11. Since then Amy Howard, Duffy and Roxanne Bird have also had screen births.
12. Out of the current cast, Ben Price, Elyes Gabel, Luke Bailey, Martina Laird, Susan Cookson and Suzanne Packer have all made previous guest appearances as a different character before their regular cast role.
13. George Harris, who played CASUALTY’s first black nurse, Clive King, in Series 1 returned to the show in Series 18 as paramedic Fin’s father.
14. Over the 20 years, there have been 7 different title sequences. Series 21 will start with new opening credits, becoming the 8th.
15. Film stars Kate Winslet, Orlando Bloom and Minnie Driver have all made guest appearances in Casualty before they hit Hollywood.
16. CASUALTY began on 6th September 1986, the first character to say a line was receptionist Susie Mercier.
17. Although now well renowned for being a Saturday night drama. Between 1989 and 1992, CASUALTY was shown on Friday nights after the watershed at 9.30pm.
18. This year saw the release of the first three series of CASUALTY onto DVD.
19. Three main characters have been played by more than one actor; William Gaminara and Philip Bretherton have both played Andrew Bower; Ashlie Walker and Holly Davidson both played Tally Harper, whilst Orlando Seale and Sebastian Dunn have both played Merlin Jameson.
20. Cathy Shipton, who plays longest serving female character Duffy, was originally supposed to audition for the part of receptionist Susie.
