Doctor on the Go (1975–1977) User Reviews

Doctors on dry land again!

[Rabical-91 · 6/10 · 31 May 2018]

After their hair-raising experience at sea, Duncan and Dick were back at St. Swithin's with their tails between their legs.

It was business as usual for the troublesome twosome, though some new characters were brought in including a Scottish equivalent of Danny Hooley named Andrew MacKenzie ( played wonderfully by John Kane ), gorgeous Dr. Kate Wright ( Jacquie Ann Carr ) who was engaged to Duncan and obsequious Dr. James Gasgoine ( Andrew Knox ), who clearly was the Bingham equivalent. Ernest Clark was still as fiery as ever as Loftus.

'Doctor On The Go' was the weakest of the 'Doctor' adaptions, possibly due to too many script writers being involved. A case of over egging the pudding. John Kane did get many laughs though as MacKenzie. He later provided scripts for 'Terry & June', as well as writing a sitcom for Richard Briers - 'All In Good Faith'. Jacquie Ann Carr did provide some romance too as Kate.

In 1977, 'Doctor On The Go' was gone after its second season. In 1979, the characters moved over to the other side of the globe for 'Doctor Down Under' and then in 1991 were back on British soil one last time for their final adaption - the unsuccessful ( and unfairly forgotten ) 'Doctor At The Top'.

The penultimate series!

[unreasonableboy · 4 February 2007]

After having enough cruising around the world Warring and Stewart -clark managed to return to St Swithans for what we were to learn was the penultimate series 'doctor on the go'. This kept faith with the original theme with all it's carrying ON's and we were introduced to the attractive Dr Kate Wright, the dopey Dr Mackenzie and the stiff backed and humorless Dr Gasgoigne. This lasted a respectable two seasons before Waring and Stewart-Clarke had to emigrate to OZ (presumably they were both struck off). By the time of the last series they had run out of ideas, scripts but more importantly they had all grown up.

(Note: in 1992 they all returned for "doctor on the top" which mercifully was sent packing after a tedious six episodes, that was not in any way funny.)

Back To St.Swithins

[ShadeGrenade · 10/10 · 25 October 2006]

'Doctor On The Go' saw Duncan Waring and Dick Stuart-Clark back at St.Swithins, and once more under the watchful eye of Professor Sir Geoffrey Loftus.

New characters included the permanently inebriated Scot 'Andrew MacKenzie' ( played by future 'Terry & June' scriptwriter John Kane ), the conceited 'Bingham'-like 'James Gascoigne' ( the late Andrew Knox ), and 'Katherine Wright' ( the attractive Jacquie-Ann Carr ), who became Waring's regular girlfriend.

Of particular note is the episode 'For Your Own Good' which marked a welcome return to writing duties for Graham Chapman, who co-wrote it with the then-unknown Douglas Adams.

Two new writers were Rob Buckman and Chris Beetles, later to land a show of their own - the very funny ( and bizarrely forgotten ) 'The Pink Medicine Show'.

It was business as usual for the St.Swithins gang, even if they now looked a little long-in-the-tooth to be still chasing pretty nurses. In the final episode - 'Happy Ever After' - Waring and Kate announced marriage plans - only to abandon them at the very last minute.

Though the door was kept open for another series, L.W.T. turned off the life support machine on Richard Gordon's creation, concluding one of I.T.V.'s biggest ever comedy successes. Waring and Stuart-Clark would next be seen in 'Doctor Down Under', an Australian T.V. spin-off in 1979, and then in 1991 crossed channels for the disastrous 'Doctor At The Top'.