Doctors (soap Opera) - Location and Setting

Location and Setting

Until mid-2004, Doctors was filmed at the BBC's Pebble Mill studios in Edgbaston, Birmingham. The show utilised space originally occupied by Pebble Mill at One (1973–1986) /Pebble Mill (1991–1996). As Studio A had been mothballed a year before production started, the existing building had to be utilised for the show. The Pebble Mill foyer was used as a street frontage and sets such as the police station and The Lether Bar used other areas of the studio complex alongside the Riverside surgery. Later in the storyline, The Best Practice was also introduced. Real houses were used for the homes of the staff and patients. After the closure of Pebble Mill, BBC Birmingham moved to a much smaller production base in Birmingham City Centre which had no studio space for the show. In light of this, the show moved to the new BBC Drama Village development in Selly Oak, Birmingham, with the transition between locations achieved on screen by an explosion destroying the Riverside practice in March 2005 for the fifth anniversary of the series and the surgery moving to a new specially constructed set, The Mill Health Centre, named after the series' original production home. Alongside the surgery, other regular locations include the police station, The Icon Bar and since 2008, The Campus Surgery, after a storyline saw the practice take over the surgery at the fictional University of Letherbridge.