BBC1 SATURDAY
THE BIG interview
AS CASUALTY STALWART CHARLIE WORKS HIS FINAL SHIFT IN THE ED, DEREK THOMPSON JOINS US TO REFLECT ON 38 YEARS AS THE LEGENDARY NURSE…
It’s the end of an era in Casualty this week, as the show’s most beloved character, Charlie Fairhead, bows out for good.
For now, how he’ll be leaving remains a mystery following a heartstopping end to the last episode, during which Charlie was stabbed by an unhinged patient – so will there be a tragic ending for everyone’s favourite nurse if he succumbs to his injuries?
It’s a bittersweet moment for Casualty legend Derek Thompson, who’s played Charlie since the medical drama’s first ever episode back in September 1986. And as he reflects on almost four decades of drama, Derek reveals that his very first appearance on the show still looms large in his mind…
“Charlie was in his little yellow Beetle coming over Bristol suspension bridge, winding through the streets of the city and ending up at the hospital,” recalls the actor. “He got out of the car with his bomber jacket on, hair all over the place… it was like Noddy goes to hospital! He looked up at the building, raised a cigarette to his lips and said, ‘Let’s do this!’. It’s an image that has stayed with me throughout all my time on Casualty.”
As the longest-serving cast member on the medical drama, Derek has become synonymous with Casualty. Though he reveals that things could have been very different if he’d known at the time that he wasn’t the only one being considered for the role…
“The bosses had narrowed the role down to about three people they had seen,” he tells us. “They’d seen me in a play with a mate of mine and they put both our names on the list, so I was up against a good friend. I didn’t know, but they told me after I’d got the job!
“I read the script and I thought it was bang on the money,” continues Derek. “It said what the show’s aims and ambitions were. I thought it was better than anything I could have done in the theatre, and that’s an unusual thing. I met the producer and director of the first episode, we started chatting and I just thought, ‘I want to be working with these people’.”
Charlie’s seen many friends and colleagues come and go over his years working in Holby City’s Emergency Department – and had a fair few love interests, too! But the one that really captured the nation’s heart was his romance with lifelong friend and colleague Lisa ‘Duffy’ Duffin, which was brought to a heartbreaking end after her diagnosis of vascular dementia.
“The story I felt most personally attached to as Charlie was the story of Duffy’s death in February 2020,” shares Derek. “T
