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UK-born actor James Flynn, 71, is no stranger to hospitals and cameras. During the 1980s, he played a doctor in the BBC soap opera Angels. Now, he’s making a return to medical drama, but this time as a real-life patient in Channel Nine’s reboot of its hospital observational series RPA.
Having undergone surgery to clamp three aneurysms in his brain, Flynn is looking forward to watching the operation on television.
The new series of observational series RPA looks at a new era of medical technology.
“I can’t bring myself to be fearful of it,” says Flynn. “I’m more amazed at the technology. I remember thinking, ‘Oh, it’s a shame they have to knock me out,’ because there are some brain operations where you can watch on a monitor while they do it, but unfortunately, mine’s not one of them. Now I will have the opportunity to see inside my own head.”
Filmed at Sydney’s Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, and narrated by Rodger Corser, the series, which originally ran from 1995-2012, enters a new era of medicine, in which surgeons can operate via robots, perform minimally invasive heart surgery and conduct 24/7 clot retrieval procedures for stroke sufferers.
Along with Flynn, the first episode features a 43-year-old mother of three from regional NSW with recurring bone cancer in her thigh; and a 17-year-old rugby player presenting to the emergency department with a broken elbow.
This time around, the series puts more emphasis on the experiences of patients beyond the hospital, as they come to terms with how their diagnoses affect their lives. Producer John McAvoy says this was partly due to COVID restrictions, but was also a way to expand on the long narrative style that he says differentiates RPA from others in its genre.
James Flynn was happy for RPA’s cameras to film the operation that clamped three aneurysms in his brain.
“We did a lot more filming at home with the families,” says McAvoy. “So if we had someone who lives in the country, we went and filmed out at the farm, so people could understand their story without having to see them through a mask the whole time. What it allowed us to do was to really get to know these people.”
Interviews with doctors eschewed the “process” style interludes favoured by reality shows.