Program Title
The Citadel

Based On
The novel by A.J. Cronin

Adapted By
Don Shaw

Number of Episodes:
10

Description
Dr. Andrew Manson, a young Scots medical graduate embarked on his first job amidst the coal mining crags of Wales--and on the slippery slopes of the citadel of 20th century medicine. Manson arrives in the Welsh mining town of Drineffy, full of enthusiasm to start his career as an assistant to Dr. Page. His expectations are soon shattered. Manson finds the conditions and the medical mores appalling. 'The Citadel' chronicles his career from early idealism and striving to the heights and sham of fashionable practice in London's elegant West End, and back again. It is also the story of Manson's love for and loss of his strong-willed, tender wife.


Original broadcast date
1983-11-20

Cast	Characters
Ben Cross	Andrew Manson
Clare Higgins	Christine Barlow
Gareth Thomas	Philip Denny
Carmen du Sautoy	Frances Lawrence
David Gwillim	David Hope
Niall Buggy	Con
Michael Cochrane	Freddy Hamson
John Nettleton	Charles Ivory
Tenniel Evans	Dr. Page
Cynthia Grenville	Miss Page
Sion Probert	Mr. Williams
Beryl Nesbitt	Annie
Milton Johns	Rees
David Pugh	Joe
Myfanwy Talog
Davyd Harries	Emlyn
Jack Walters	Thomas
Raymond Bowers	Dr. Llewellyn
Tim Wylton	Ed Chenkin
Virginia Fiol
Colin Baker	Vaughn
Jane How	Mrs. Vaughn
Peggy A Wood
Mostyn Evans
Preston Lockwood
John Welsh	Sir Robert Abbey
Oliver F Davies	Reverend Parry
Cyril Luckham
Nicholas Day
Wendy Williams	Sylvia
Sarah Berger	Toppy

Credits

Producer: Ken Riddington
Director: Mike Vardy

Intro
THE CITADEL/Episode 1/Intro by Alistair Cooke

Good evening, I'm Alistair Cooke.

Tonight we begin a dramatization of The Citadel, which many doctors say is the most infamous novel by A. J. Cronin. It came out in 1937; it was an immediate best seller and it is as close to an autobiography as a novel can come. Cronin's father was a poor peddler in Ireland and left the country in bad times and went to Scotland, and died of tuberculosis when the boy was only five. The mother had been cut off by her comfortable Scottish Presbyterian family for having married a ne'er do well and a Catholic. The boy would have had a very elementary education, indeed, if it had not been for an uncle who regretted the family's treatment of the boy's mother. So he saw him through a good private school. From there, Cronin won a scholarship to Glasgow University, was a prize student, and wound up with a choice of studying either divinity or medicine. He chose, he said, the lesser evil--medicine.

In the First World War, he was a medical officer aboard a destroyer. Back in Scotland, he met and married a medical student and once she qualified, they took off for their first job, which was in a coal-mining valley in Wales.

Now his wife never practiced, but she helped him with his dispensing. This was when, in places where there were no pharmacies, the doctor kept all his own drugs, and prepared his own prescriptions in what he called his dispensary. Well, the coal-mining valley was a bad experience. Cronin quit and became a medical inspector of mines where he had time to study for the supreme British medical degree: MRCP--member of the Royal College of Physicians. Once he got it, he went off to London and built a rundown practice into a very profitable one. He felt very guilty about this and got an ulcer, and was forced into a long rest, went to Scotland and wrote his first novel Hatter's Castle which was a thumping success and he never practiced again. Then in 1937 came The Citadel. After that came the deluge of royalties and abuse from the medical establishment.

Well the story begins in 1924 with young Dr. Manson coming down from Scotland to a Welsh coal-mining town to set up his surgery, which is British for the physician's office--and to work as an assistant to an old Dr. Page. He will live with Dr. Page and the doctor's sister, Miss Page.

Now, episode one of The Citadel.





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