Green Wing is back!

Six audio episodes drop today, with the original cast

Audible’s reboot of Green Wing has dropped today.

The original stars of the cult comedy taped six audio instalments of Green Wing: Resuscitated, 17 years after the last episode of the original aired on Channel 4.

Guy Secretan, played by Stephen Mangan, is now a media sensation, balancing his TV and podcast appearances with his role as an anaesthetist. ‘Mac' MacCartney played by Julian Rhind-Tutt – who was told he was going to die in the TV series finale – has now returned to work as a surgeon, while Caroline Todd, played by Tamsin Greig is making waves overseas as a medical pioneer.

Joanna Clore played by Pippa Haywood, is now imprisoned following her killing spree while co-stars Olivia Colman, Mark Heap, Oliver Chris, Michelle Gomez and Karl Theobald all return, too.

Green Wing: Resuscitated was masterminded by original creator Victoria Pile who reassembled the writing team including Robert Harley, James Henry, Oriane Messina and Fay Rusling.

Pile revealed the project on Radio 4’s What’s Funny About… back in October, saying that it was first floated during the Covid pandemic.

She said: ‘Something that was asked of us in lockdown was to potentially write a podcast version, and there was a huge long debate about what that might be.

‘I’d resisted for ages and thought, "No, we have such joyous memories of what it was, and there’s nowhere we can go again" ‘But they chipped away… So we think we’re going to record a podcast which is essentially a continuation of where we were. Obviously, that poses quite a lot of narrative challenges.’

Elsewhere in the Radio 4 programme, Pile said she might have to modify the comedy’s sensibilities for today’s audiences – especially the sexism they mocked.

She said: ‘There had been an awful lot of righteous, PC stuff [at the time] and we were reclaiming our freedom to be able to make jokes. The misogyny was permissible because we clearly called the characters out all the time. The difference now is that you can’t present such characters, even though they do exist.’

Green Wing: Resuscitated is available on Audible.

Thanks for reading. If you find Chortle’s coverage of the comedy scene useful or interesting, please consider supporting us with a monthly or one-off ko-fi donation.

Any money you contribute will directly fund more reviews, interviews and features – the sort of in-depth coverage that is increasingly difficult to fund from ever-squeezed advertising income, but which we think the UK’s vibrant comedy scene deserves.

Subscribe or donate here

;

Published: 29 Apr 2024