Monroe

[tammyy2j]

ITV is lining up a new medical drama to fill the 9pm slot that will soon be left vacant by police drama The Bill.

The long-running series was recently axed due to its ratings dropping massively over the years, and brand new six-part series Monroe is likely to be one of its replacements when it stops airing this autumn after 27 years on the small screen.

No cast has been announced yet for Monroe, but an ITV1 spokesperson confirmed that the project was poised to be given the go-ahead.

The upcoming drama, penned by Desperate Romantics and Blackpool writer Peter Bowker, follows the work of a hospital neurologist. Bowker told MediaGuardian.co.uk that he is hoping it will match the dramatic intensity of US TV show House.

He said: "It may be foolish to compare the two but with neurologists, as with House, there is this very intense 10 days when you work with them on a case and then you say goodbye – it is really quite fascinating and will hopefully make great drama."

Monroe is likely to be broadcast on ITV1 early next year. It will be made by production company Mammoth Screen.

[tammyy2j]

James Nesbitt has reportedly landed the title role in ITV's new medical drama Monroe.

According to What's On TV, the Cold Feet star will play a neurosurgeon in the show, which revolves around patients, relatives and staff in a modern hospital.

The programme has previously been described as a replacement for The Bill and has been penned by Peter Bowker.

ITV's director of drama commissioning Laura Mackie said: "Monroe will breathe new life into the medical genre. I hope the combination of Pete's sharp and pacey script and Jimmy's performance as the charismatic surgeon will make this one of the most compelling new dramas for 2011."

Filming for the show is scheduled to begin in Leeds in September.

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Episode 1 10th March

Monroe (James Nesbitt) is a brilliant neurosurgeon, a husband and a father. At work, he has the courage to perform cutting edge brain surgery – operating on the very thing that makes us who we are. At home, he’s afraid to admit that his life is falling apart.

To his patients, he is the most powerful person in the world: the man with the power to change their lives forever. Yet he is also human, and every bit as flawed as he is brilliant.

Nobody is more aware of Monroe’s flaws than Jenny Bremner (Sarah Parish), a glacial cardiac surgeon with little time for Monroe and his emotional approach to his patients. Bremner is a closed book, but with the help of his best friend and anaesthetist Laurence Shepherd (Tom Riley), Monroe is determined to unearth her sense of humour.

While Bremner’s trainees Andrew Mullery (Andrew Gower) and Sarah Witney (Christina Chong) are left to observe her operations from the sidelines, Monroe does all he can to encourage his weak-stomached trainee Wilson and keep the ambitious Springer in check.

Monroe’s registrar Sally Fortune (Manjinder Virk) has made it through her training to become his trusted right hand woman, but he isn’t convinced that his new recruits have what it takes.

Along with Shepherd, the formidable theatre nurse Wickens (Liz Hume-Dawson) and porter-cum-bookie Bradley (Thomas Morrison), they constitute Monroe’s dysfunctional hospital family. If he cannot repair his life at home, they might turn out to be his only family.

When a young woman, Alison Bannister (Sarah Smart) is admitted with a brain tumour, Monroe has to help her to face a frightening decision: an operation could leave her paralysed or unable to speak, yet without surgery, she is likely to die within a few years.

Does she want to survive if surgery might change who she is? And can Monroe get her through this crisis as his own life starts to spiral out of control?

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Episode 2 17th March

As Monroe (James Nesbitt) struggles to accept the fact that his wife, Anna (Susan Lynch), has left him, he throws himself into work and tries to pretend that his life is not in free fall. His best friend and anaesthetist Shepherd (Tom Riley) can see straight through him, and his teenage son is demanding answers - but can Monroe find the courage to admit the truth about why his marriage has ended?

At the hospital, Monroe and Bremner have to deal with a double shooting after a fourteen year old boy accidentally shoots his twelve year old brother, before attempting to kill himself. Springer (Luke Allen-Gale) literally manages to add insult to injury by offending the boys’ father as his son lies on the operating table, and Monroe is forced to resort to extreme measures to prove that the boys are in good hands. With his own home life disintegrating, Monroe is determined to engage with the boys’ family and understand why the parents are estranged, but his attempts to help are less than welcome.

The bitter and funny personality clash between Monroe and Bremner (Sarah Parish) continues, and Bremner is incensed by Monroe’s attempts to play ‘family therapist’ with the mother of her patient. Shepherd is buoyed up by a mystery date, but refuses to share any details with Monroe and Bradley. Meanwhile, Bremner discovers that even the trainees are gossiping about her impersonal attitude to her patients, and Witney (Christina Chong) has some explaining to do. Springer finally meets his match in the form of a fearsome theatre nurse.

[tammyy2j]

[tammyy2j]

James Nesbitt has been keeping pretty busy recently. The former Cold Feet star is currently over in New Zealand getting ready to film The Hobbit, but before all that he's starring in ITV's brand new medical drama Monroe. The show follows Nesbitt's character - the neuroscientist Gabriel Monroe - as he tries to balance his career and his personal life! We gave James a ring to find out about the show, whether it's the British version of House, and if he would be open to a Cold Feet reunion...

Can you tell us a bit about Monroe?
"It's a drama about a neurosurgeon called Gabriel Monroe who is - like all neurosurgeons as I think we discovered from our research - rather brilliant. He does an extraordinary job. His life is in a bit of disarray and he's a bit flawed. He's not very good at examining his own life or his own head, but he's very good at looking into other people's heads and removing all the tumours and badness that lies within. It's written by Pete Bowker - I worked with Pete recently on Occupation. He's my favourite writer, really. He had his own experience of neurosurgery when his daughter, who was 4 at the time, had a brain tumour. I think he was fascinated by this notion of handing over the love of his life to someone who was going to open up her brain and try to remove this thing. It was the combination of Pete and the director Paul McGuigan - who directed Sherlock - and David Moore, the next director, and a very good team and a very good cast - Sarah Parish and Tom Riley. It just made it a very exciting prospect. And it's something that I enjoyed immensely, and I hope it's good. I think it's funny and it really has very human stories at the centre of it."

You mentioned Sarah Parish - how does Monroe get on with her character?
"Yeah, good. Well, not good at all actually - I get on with her very well! She plays a cardiac surgeon... I think often there is great rivalry between neurosurgeons and cardiac surgeons. I think I maybe have a bit of bias with neurosurgeons' opinion that nothing tops neurosurgery! But that makes for a quite interesting conflict between the two. And then Tom Riley - who is a brilliant young actor - he's caught in between. There are many different stories and Pete is so good at that. He's a very intelligent writer but he's incredibly accessible. He's got incredible range but this obviously having had personal issues for him in a way may carry more weight for him as a writer."

How does Monroe balance his career and his personal life?
"The work-life balance is pretty imbalanced, really. In a way, his home is the hospital. They're so committed, these people, and so driven. I mean, they're kind of fanatic about what they do in a sense. They spend so much time in hospital they're often rarely at home and I think if you look at the divorce rate of surgeons it's pretty high. I think it has an impact in the same way that in Occupation, going off to war meant in a sense that your true friends were your soldiers. In a way I think that's the case in Monroe. His home life suffers hugely. His life is in disarray but meanwhile he's putting lives back together and I think that conflict makes for great drama. It's also very funny because I think when you open up people's heads in such a brutal way and then you're gallantly trying to remove these ugly tumours and cancers, I think if you didn't have a sense of humour you'd go mad. The operations that I saw - and I saw four or five - humour plays a very important part in the theatre in keeping everyone buoyant and keeping them going and keeping them focused."

You mentioned you saw some surgeries - were you squeamish?
"I thought I would be. I didn't really fancy it at all! But I was fascinated. I was right up close - I was standing as close to a brain as I'm standing to my hand when I look at it now. And at the beginning of the first operation, one of the preeminent surgeons Henry Marsh - I saw him standing over this guy's head that was opened up and there was his brain and he just pointed to a little area and he said, 'You see that, James? That's thought'. I mean, what's not to find fascinating about that? It was a real privilege actually. It's pretty brutal when they go into the head. To get through that bone takes a lot of force and it can be like a building site sometimes."

Monroe has been described as a British version of House - do you think that's fair?
"I think they're very different. I hadn't seen House before and I've only just started watching it here in New Zealand. It's wonderful but I think it's very, very different. I can understand people making the comparison but I think the lives are different, the characters are very, very different. I just think it's a different setup and I think when you start watching Monroe, I kind of think you don't really think of House at all. I hope not. But if people like it half as much as they like House, we'll be doing alright!"

Do you want to make another series of Monroe then?
"Yes! There you have it, right from the horse's mouth. I'd love to."

Why should people tune in to watch Monroe?
"I think because they're human stories. For a start, Pete's a brilliant writer. It's funny. It's a fascinating world. People love watching medical dramas - they also love watching documentaries about the workings of the brain. I think the look of it is very unusual. And we all have a sense of mortality for ourselves and for our families and Monroe deals with all these things. Also, I think we're fascinated by characters like that, who have a brilliance that we don't possess but also have very human flaws which we all recognise. I think that's something that appeals to people hopefully."

We've got to ask the Cold Feet question - when we spoke to Helen Baxendale recently she said she'd be open to a reunion. What are your thoughts - would you go back?
"Well yeah, I guess. I loved working with Helen, I loved working with them all. People have sort of [asked] me [about it] but I heard nothing about the reunion. But you know... I'd be very happy to revisit what was such a good time and such a positive impact on my career. I'm happy to consider all offers."

Monroe begins on Thursday at 9pm on ITV1.

[Perdita]

Thursday, 31 March 2011, 9:00PM - 10:00PM

Monroe’s (James Nesbitt) life plunges further into chaos as he discovers that ‘civilized divorce’ is harder than he had ever imagined. As Anna (Susan Lynch) starts a new life, Monroe is determined to show that he can move on too, but his attempts to enter the world of dating seem doomed to failure.

At the hospital, Monroe is sure that surgery can help Brendan (Tony Mooney), a family man whose epileptic seizures have been getting worse. However, Brendan has other ideas: he firmly believes that God is talking to him during his seizures, and is reluctant to give up these powerful religious experiences, even if it means that his condition will deteriorate. Monroe tries to persuade him to go ahead with the operation, but Brendan’s teenage daughter, Phoebe (Phoebe Dynevor), accuses Monroe of being too arrogant to understand her father’s special closeness to God. Is Monroe right to try to persuade him, and what will Brendan decide to put his faith in?

Witney (Christina Chong) and Mullery (Andrew Gower) are unnerved by Bremner’s (Sarah Parish) suspiciously good mood, but Monroe is sure that he knows her secret. Unable to resist having some fun, he reveals that he knows about her relationship with Shepherd (Tom Riley), but Bremner is furious to find that she is the subject of gossip and takes decisive action. Meanwhile, Witney struggles to prove that she isn’t judgemental, Bremner has to treat a young patient with a crush on her and Springer (Luke Allen-Gale) continues to infuriate Monroe.


from itv website

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Episode 5 7th April

When registrar Sally Fortune collapses, Monroe is faced with the terrifying prospect of operating on a colleague. Fortune’s condition is serious – she has an aneurysm in her brain which could burst at any moment, and one wrong move during surgery risks leaving her permanently damaged. Fortune places her trust in her mentor, but when the procedure begins to go badly, Monroe has to hold his nerve in a race against time to save his registrar.

Monroe’s thorny relationship with Bremner reaches a crisis point when Bremner becomes involved in Fortune’s treatment, and Shepherd finds himself torn between his best friend and his new girlfriend. Shepherd is convinced that he can make Bremner happy, but can their fledging relationship survive the pressures of the hospital?

The trainees are all anxious about Fortune, but Mullery seems more worried than anyone – is there more to his concern than meets the eye? Meanwhile, Witney has to contend with a patient who refuses to have her surgery cancelled, and Springer learns that no patient is disposable.

At home, Monroe claims that he is being ‘mature’ by helping his wife to start a new life without him, but their son Nick is not convinced. Is Monroe finally ready to let go of the past, or is he giving up on his marriage too easily?

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Thursday 14th April

Series finale: Monroe is finally forced to confront the painful truth about his past when a lively night shift at the hospital suddenly takes a darker turn. The day of reckoning has finally arrived for the trainees as they face their assessments, and Monroe tries to persuade Bremner to make Shepherd stay.

Monroe (James Nesbitt) is finally forced to confront the painful truth about his past when a lively night shift at the hospital suddenly takes a darker turn. When a thirteen year old girl is admitted following a road accident, Monroe knows that there is little chance of saving her and an operation could leave her severely damaged. However, her father begs him to operate and give her a chance to live - whatever the consequences. Shepherd (Tom Riley) sees that Monroe is wavering and accuses him of allowing his emotions to cloud his judgement. But Monroe is a father as well as a surgeon, and seeing this young girl makes his own pain come flooding back. Can Monroe save her, and will he ever be able to let go of his own grief and make peace with his family?

Shepherd is still smarting from his break up with Bremner (Sarah Parish), but finds it impossible to avoid her at the hospital. When Monroe discovers that he is thinking about leaving, he begs Bremner to give his best friend a second chance, but Shepherd is not prepared for what Bremner has to tell him. Meanwhile, the competition between the trainees intensifies as the day of their assessments arrives. Springer (Luke Allen-Gale) is sure that Monroe wants to get rid of him, but Wilson (Michelle Asante) has a surprise in store. Witney (Christina Chong) is frustrated when she loses out on a training opportunity to Mullery (Andrew Gower), but Mullery has bigger concerns as Fortune (Manjinder Virk) continues to feel the impact of her surgery.