Julia Watson on This Morning with Richard Madely and Judy Finnigan September 1996


JF:        A spot of Casualty now, back on the telly tomorrow night and a big moment for Charlie and
              Baz.

<clip of Charlie arriving at Baz's side - taken from Series 11 Episode 1>

JF:        And Julia Watson's with us now

RM:       We wanted the BBC to send us the clip of you giving birth but they wouldn't

JW:       Well it's amazing how I've got my figure back so quickly

JF:        That clip of a pregnant tummy at the beginning of that clip that we just saw, obviously wasn't
              you. It wasn't make up was it?

JW:       No it was a real pregnant lady, who came into the operating theatre, saw all the stuff and
              she was about to give birth. She was three weeks off and we said 'Please don't give birth
              now but  there is a midwife around!'.....

RM:        I'm glad you're here because it's given us a chance to read up about your life. I knew I'd
               seen you in Casualty before your current reincarnation. You started in it didn't you?

JW:        Yes

RM:        Very early on. You were in it for one series?

JW:        Yes, I was the young doctor in the first series and now I'm back as the middle aged
               doctor!

JF:         After an eight and a half year gap?

JW:        Yes

JF:         Extraordinary

RM:        Well it shows how faithful you are to the series

JF:         Your character had an affair with Charlie in the early days?

JW:        Baz had an affair with Charlie in the first series, and got pregnant and had an abortion.
               She felt the relationship wasn't right and she was on a career role. She was a young
               doctor, planning to be a very successful doctor.

JF:         And so whilst she was out of the series, Baz got married

JW:        She got married. They sort of wrote me this very detailed character breakdown and they
               thought possibly she'd had another one or two longstanding affairs and then she met
               Peter and got married, whilst they were working in Birmingham. Then Peter's job
               transferred to Holby...

JF:         And you end up back with Charlie!

JW:        Yes! She ends up back in Holby and we'd decided that within the 8 years she'd
               specialised in trauma medicine, so she would be looking for jobs in A&E. So she'd have
               to go back into Casualty and would be very surprised to see Charlie still there.

RM:        But you left after the first one because it was the policy then to change the cast quite a lot
               because that's what happens in hospitals

JW:        Well young doctors when they're first starting out in their careers do 6 months specialities.
               They do 6 months in one speciality and then they'll move, they'll go into geriatrics or
               paediatrics. So they always said to me 'you'll only do one series because we're going to
               change young doctors every series' and I said 'fine'

JF:         But Charlie stayed

JW:        Yes Charlie stayed. Well Nurses have a longer contract

RM:        We can't get him on you know. Nobody gets to interview him. What's the name of the guy
               who plays Charlie?

JW:        Derek

RM:        Nobody gets to interview Derek. He won't do anything. He's incredibly shy

JW:        It is shyness. It's not that he wouldn't like to come on. I think he finds it difficult.

JF:         A lot of actors do. They find it very hard to confident unless they're into a another character

RM:        But that's not a problem for you. You seem very confident

JW:        Well funnily enough I nearly became a presenter a long time ago

JF:         Did you? What on?

JW:        For Anglia. Years ago.

RM:        Was it a continuity announcer?

JW:        Yes with a potted plant behind you saying at 7 o'clock this evening we will have
               Coronation Street. I just remember the potted plant, it was a rubber plant. They took me
               into the studios to show me and I thought 'Oh my god, there's a rubber plant. I'd be sitting
               with a rubber plant growing out of my shoulder.'

JF:         Right well, we don't know, we can't give away whether it's a boy or girl tomorrow night

JW:        Oh right. Well I won't tell you then

JF:         Do we know, are we allowed to say the method of birth?

RM:        Well we saw it in the clip. It's a caesarean

JW:        It's a caesarean yes. It's an emergency caesarean

RM:        So things get pretty rough

JW:        Well things get to the point where they have to get the baby out. The thing was, I think it's
               very difficult to make birth look real on TV, if you're not actually giving birth. The show's on
               quite early, you have to be quite careful how you deal with things. We have to be careful
               with how we deal with the accidents and emergencies. We can't show too much blood,
               a lot of children watch it. So I think it was felt that this was possibly the best way of dealing
               with it and I have to say as the actor I was very relieved. I wasn't sure I wanted to do too
               much grunting and groaning.

RM:        So you just had to give a convincing performance of being out cold

JW:         No I'm awake. I have an epidural. We use all modern medicine - show that it works

JF:          Well thank you very much for talking to us

JW:         It's nice to be here

JF:          It starts tomorrow night.  How long does the series run for

JW:         For 24 weeks

RM:         It's all winter isn't it? It's just on all winter. What time does it start

<Julia stares blankly!!>

RM:         You don't know do you

JW:         After the lottery!

JF:           I feel really sorry for Charlie. He always looks so harassed and worried

JW:          He does but he's going to have a much better time of it this year. Things are looking up -
                 he's going to be a Dad

RM:          Tell him that we don't bite. Tell him to come on

JW:          I will. I will. I did try and persuade him very hard

RM:          Derek - come on!