Doctor in Charge

- Season 1

(1972)

When Michael leaves St. Swithins, Professor Loftus decides to replace him with Duncan Waring, who has been working as a doctor in Baltimore. When Duncan arrives at the hospital, Dick, Paul and others all pretend to have forgotten who he is for a joke but Loftus is pleased to see him and interested to know what methods he learned in America. One of these is singing during an operation. Loftus and Duncan disagree over treatment during the op but when Duncan is proved right Loftus joins him in playing a joke on the other doctors.

Learning that he may receive a knighthood if St. Swithins can produce a medical breakthrough, Professor Loftus takes up Bingham's suggestion that they research plastic catheters but sacks him when he finds he has stolen the idea from a magazine and assigns Duncan to the research instead. Duncan can't quite get the experiment to work but when an irate Bingham blows the whistle on Collier making home brew in the lab and takes a journalist there, it's Bingham's attempt to sabotage the research that causes its success.

The Minister of Health is to be admitted for the removal of varicose veins. When a vicar, Mr. Bridgenorth, also due to have varicose veins removed, turns up slightly ahead of the minister, he is mistaken for the illustrious patient and receives the full V.I.P. treatment whereas the minister himself is treated rather more ordinarily. However the minister appreciates this, and Professor Loftus breathes a sigh of relief that he might just get his knighthood after all.

Dr. Aziz comes to join Duncan in his research but Duncan finds it hard to understand him. Aziz leaves but a preparation of his is given to McCorquedale, a racist, bigoted Scots patient, as a sedative. Once again Duncan finds it hard to read Aziz's instructions and the wrong dosage is given - turning the patient black. Aziz makes it clear he left, not because he felt he was bullied racially but he found the staff incompetent and impossible to work with.

Duncan is dating Nurse Sandra so he is caught on the hop when Gloria and Bonnie, two girls he went out with in America, decide to show up independent of each other. He frantically tries to juggle things so the three don't meet up, and eventually Paul and Dick take the visitors off his hands. However, an irate Sandra refuses to speak to him so he is left with nobody.

The doctors are fed up with being over-worked and underpaid so Paul Collier does a time and motion study, setting out their hours. He writes letters to the Daily Mirror and the BMJ but the others are too cowardly to sign them so when they are published he is the only doctor called before the board - who actually agree with him and give the doctors a rise.

Duncan is returning a bag to Harley Street specialist Sir Desmond in his Oldsmobile, when Collier 'borrows' the car to impress a girl and Duncan reports it as stolen. He soon finds the car and drives off but then Paul reports it stolen and calls himself Duncan Waring, to appear to be the rightful owner of the car. They are both arrested and confuse the police by claiming to be the other. Professor Loftus eventually sorts things out by which time Sir Desmond's car has been towed away.

Dick shows an interest in joining the Freemasons so the other doctors send him a spoof letter, allegedly from the Masons, inviting him to spooky Wookham Priory at midnight. Here they terrify him, before revealing themselves so when Dick issues an invitation to an orgy at the Empire Hotel, Duncan assumes this is a wind-up and rings the police. When the police turn up it's actually a masonic meeting which they interrupt - involving the Chief Constable.

Lady Molly Cornford's father has died. He was a generous benefactor to St. Swithins and Professor Loftus organizes a memorial service for him. When the organist gets knocked unconscious whilst playing golf with Duncan, Bingham is only too pleased to fill the breach. Duncan, Paul and Dick see this as sucking up to Loftus so they get Bingham paralytic by giving him spiked tomato juices. And so at the service he ends up playing 'Good Golly, Miss Molly' instead of hymn number 123.

Professor Loftus believes there should be a junior doctor on the board but only Duncan and Bingham apply. Dick tries to swing things for Duncan by saying that his mother is a countess but Bingham, coincidentally called out to treat her, finds she is a policeman's wife and sends the board to see her. Dick thinks quickly and drags up to impersonate the countess and Duncan gets the post.

A new matron arrives, the terrifying and puritanical Miss Fox. Even Loftus, who knew her when he was a young doctor, is scared of her. Duncan and Paul attempt to get rid of her by sending love letters supposedly by Bingham but all in vain. Duncan and Bingham fall out over the same girl, Sandra, and Duncan decides to get at Bingham by putting a bucket of whitewash on top of the door so that it will fall him. It claims another victim instead - but it gets rid of the Fox!

Bingham is anxious to propose to Dr. Mary Parsons and does so in the mortuary where she is working, but by accident slips the ring onto a corpse's finger. Mary still carries a torch for Duncan, which angers Bingham. Dick has bet Duncan he can't stay the night alone in the mortuary so he, to win the bet, and Bingham, for revenge, dress as ghosts to scare him. Duncan sees through the trick immediately and sends them away - but another corpse is apparently stirring under a sheet. It's Mary, still after Duncan.

Bingham and Mary are getting married but Mary is applying for promotion and Lawrence fears she won't get it if it's known she's married, so Duncan tells him to keep the wedding secret and leave it to the last moment. The day arrives and Duncan, who is to be best man, and Lawrence, race through an operation, arousing the suspicions of Paul and Dick, who think Mary is marrying Duncan. The wedding goes ahead but the four doctors get into a scrap and fall into a fountain, which shows up on the wedding photos.

As the Binghams prepare for their honeymoon, Paul and Dick get Lawrence so drunk he passes out and when he comes to they have encased his leg in plaster, telling him he broke it dancing on a table. Duncan has to drive the couple to their hotel in their car but due to the lack of trains must stay the night. Paul drives down next day to free Bingham but his car breaks down and Lawrence has to tow him. Unfortunately the plaster gets stuck on the accelerator and eventually the car stops on a level crossing. Lawrence is freed but the car is a write-off and Collier ends up ...

Waring and Bingham are on night duty in the emergency room, with sole patient Nobby Watts, when a sailor who has returned from Asia checks in - with all the symptoms of small-pox. Having rung the Medical Officer of Health to report the outbreak, the two doctors panic as they are bitten by the sailor's pet mouse and accidentally break the radiator, causing a flood. Next day it is revealed that the sailor had chicken pox, not small-pox, but the medics have to go into isolation since they were bitten by a - possibly rabid - mouse.

After a ward round row as to which doctor should examine ex-schoolmaster Mr. Hutton first, Professor Loftus asks the doctors to come up with a system to improve efficiency. Duncan is the only one with a system that looks workable but it becomes so complicated that it has to be scrapped. Then Bingham puts forward a system - which he has got from Mr. Hutton. Sadly this is the same system that Waring got from the old man.

Collier is feeling stressed and when he climbs out of a window onto scaffolding to retrieve a paper that has blown there it is assumed he is suicidal. Duncan goes out to rescue him but they both have to be saved by the fire brigade. Bingham has also tried to get them using his rock-climbing skills. Unfortunately he is left dangling.

Reggie Grace is a hapless, clumsy medical student but Collier has given him a good report because he fancies his sister, so when a party of big-wigs come to visit the hospital Grace is charged with showing them round. To cause a diversion Collier feigns illness and collapses. The plan is that he supposedly has glandular fever but Reggie correctly diagnoses a slipped disc and is declared the hero of the hour by the visitors.

Considering the food in the hospital canteen to be inedible, Duncan and Paul go on a macrobiotic diet, but Professor Loftus is appalled to find they have scurvy, due to a lack of vitamin C, and makes them eat in the canteen. To bring him on side they get him to eat the canteen food and he agrees that it is dreadful. However the new menu he orders proves to be so expensive that the old fare is served up again.

Due to a remark made by Duncan in his local Chinese restaurant, a party of Chinese communists comes to visit the hospital. Bingham, in particular, is convinced they are spies come to find how hospital equipment can be used to start wars, so there is panic when they all go missing. In fact they have been admiring the hospital's linear accelerator and put in an order for some for Chinese hospitals. They are then invited to watch an operation, which the paranoid Bingham almost sabotages, but the day ends well. However, it seems that Duncan has also been shooting his ...

The doctors want to accompany Loftus on his ward rounds in order to see the pretty new physiotherapists. Loftus humiliates them in front of the ladies. Duncan dates one of them, Emma, whom he sees as young and vulnerable and he is very protective of her. This gets too much for her and she strips off in public, denouncing him as dull before she chucks him.

Envious of the Binghams' new house which they bought with financial help from their parents, Dick, Paul and Duncan consider buying a property. Dick and Paul offer six thousand to Major Woodnutt for his house in Primrose Crescent, which he says he will honour as an officer and a gentleman. However, when Duncan innocently puts in a higher offer he accepts that instead and eventually sells to a couple who put in an even higher bid. The house is lost but revenge presents itself when the major arrives at the hospital in need of an operation.

When Professor Loftus goes on holiday, his replacement is Dick's uncle, Jeremy De Quincy, who is easy-going and initially seen as a breath of fresh air. However, eventually he gets on everybody's nerves as he is a lecherous scrounger, borrowing money from both patients and doctors. When Dick tells him he knows he is not qualified to be a chief surgeon, he leaves - but appoints Lawrence Bingham as his successor.

Duncan and Paul want a colour television set for the doctors' common room but the Binghams want a table-tennis table as Lawrence professes to be excellent at the game. Dick stays neutral. To decide which item they should have a ping-pong match is arranged between Waring and Collier on one side and Bingham and Dick on the other with Mary as umpire - the winners to bring in their choice. Dick and Paul are both useless as is Mary as the umpire and even Lawrence's shortcomings are eventually exposed.

Mrs. Loftus returns to work as a nurse at the same time that Annabel, Lady Cornford's daughter, starts work. Annabel does not want preferential treatment and disguises her parentage but when she lets it slip that she has had dinner with the professor and has been seeing a married man called Geoff, it is assumed that she and Loftus are having an affair. Mrs. Loftus eventually explains the truth but, to save face, Duncan tries to tell everybody about another of the professor's indiscretions.

Professor Loftus is near to receiving his knighthood when he hears that Professor Mincing from Highcross has also been considered. Having suspended Dick for cooking the books for the hospital bar, he reinstates him when Dick gets him membership at his club. Unfortunately this is all seen and recorded by Professor Mincing so, to avoid further suspension, Dick and Duncan, disguised as window-cleaners, set out to retrieve the tell-tale tapes.

Professor Loftus is to go Buckingham Palace to receive his knighthood but rivalry between Waring and Bingham means that his Rolls Royce is cancelled. Duncan sets out to drive him but runs out of petrol and, when Collier offers to drive, Bingham lets his tyres down so that eventually the journey has to be made in an ambulance. Since some robbers have also used an ambulance as a getaway vehicle, confusion reigns as the hospital party is arrested. Sir Geoffrey misses his appointment but they do get a reward for catching the villains.