Key character biographies
Meet the key characters who feature in Quacks.
Published: 8 August 2017
Meet the key characters who feature in Quacks.
Robert Lessing (Rory Kinnear)
The showman surgeon
A skillful, arrogant and quick-witted showman. His operations are quite literally ‘theatrical events’ to which awestruck doctors and members of the public flock. He can take a leg off in 92 seconds.
Robert’s becoming famous – he’s almost as good as he thinks he is. And he loves it. His desire for self-gain can make him manipulative and pompous but despite his self-regard, there is also a pioneering spirit to Robert, born out of a desire to do good. He really wants to save lives. He just wants all the credit afterwards too…
William Agar (Mathew Baynton)
The fledgling psychiatrist
William is a kind, repressed, neurotic psychiatrist (then called alienist) looking to transform mental care. This is still a time when people would still pay to go and laugh at the chained-up patients and treatments included beating and bleeding.
As an alienist, William is on the fringes of the medical world - ‘mad doctors’ were looked down on by fellow physicians. William is no less pioneering than his friends - he wants to let his patients express themselves by doing a painting, putting on a play, or with trips to the library. He wants to talk to them… a radical notion. But it’s not easy. In fact William finds dealing with his own feelings a challenge. Especially when it comes to Robert’s wife, Caroline…
John Sutton (Tom Basden)
The pioneering anaesthetist
John is a dentist from a tough, working class background. He can clear out all 34 teeth from a patient in 2 minutes. But it’s a grim, painful business and John is determined to pioneer anaesthetic for the benefit of all.
There’s a mischievous imp in John - his life philosophy is ‘why not?’ - whether that’s trying mysterious new drugs on a patient - or himself. John experiments on himself and others with anything he can get his hands on - a new ‘medicinal’ wine mixture endorsed by the Pope, or a tropical plant.
Caroline Lessing (Lydia Leonard)
A clever, passionate, witty and a great liberal campaigner for social change. A mischievous radical.
Frustrated by the male prejudices of the day, Caroline is a force of nature. She’s very much a part of the booming liberal clubs in London, always off at some dinner - every night she comes back with fascinating new ideas and plans. She decides that she wants to become a doctor too, like her husband. But Victorian society won’t allow that, will it?
The biggest problem in her life is that at home her passions are not met by Robert. She needs someone to talk to about the torment she’s going through - so turns to William. William is keen to help her. But where will that help lead them?
Dr Hendrick (Rupert Everett)
The Royal Physician and President of the hospital. He’s a condescending social climber. He exudes power, wealth and madness. He grew up with 18th century medicine - as a Physician he knows it’s not at all necessary to examine a patient in order to treat them. He represents everything that our three young medical heroes are fighting against. He hates innovation and young people. And women. And patients.
The Pub Landlord (Geoff McGivern)
A simple and cheerful man who believes in fairies and folklore. As a result he’ll try any old Quackery that’s peddled at him, even if it clearly harms him. He loves having the doctors in his pub, they’re like local celebrities. And it means he can get a bit of free medical advice over a pint of The Squirrels.
Fitz (Andy Linden)
Fitz is a guard at the Hospital Asylum. A decent, straightforward man who has a simple job - he has to sign the patients in, jot down their madness, and hit them with his big stick if they misbehave. Or bleed them. He likes to bleed them. Bleeding always calms them.
Peters (Ed Gaughan)
Peters is the Hospital Porter. When he’s not turning bodies into candles to sell, he acts like the operating theatre’s MC: he likes his own voice and gets the crowd excited, using colourful, attention-grabbing language to introduce the surgeons.
Butterworth (Osi Okerafor)
A debt collector for hire. John regularly racks up debts buying powders, pills and potions in his efforts to create the perfect anesthesia. Butterworth is always ready and willing to use his array of persuasive techniques to encourage John to pay up. Butterworth loves his job - whether he’s threatening to set fire to John’s head or smashing his equipment, he always does it with a smile.
Matron (Selina Griffiths)
The Matron of the hospital is fierce, no-nonsense and always ready to put Robert in his place. She runs an efficient ward and enjoys baiting Robert’s arrogance.
Mina (Lisa Jackson)
Mina is an intense, slightly unhinged family friend of William’s. They last knew each other twenty years ago as children, and now she’s grown up she’s set her sights on William as a future husband. Despite William’s gentle rebuttals, Mina is not the sort of woman who takes no for an answer. She’s the sort of woman who turns up unannounced with a box of cream buttons and a plan to trap you into marriage.
William’s Mother (Marcia Warren)
William’s mother is a kind, sweet natured woman who has rather unfortunately let her husband squander the family fortune. She’s on the verge of bankruptcy. Luckily, William’s childhood friend Mina has recently inherited her father’s estate and may provide a solution…
The Duke of Bedford (Nicholas Blane)
The Duke of Bedford is a minor member of Royalty who rather urgently needs his massive face tumour removed. He is rich, loud, privileged and entitled. The death rates in Victorian hospitals were high, and so patients would put off procedures for as long as possible, leading to tumours the size of grapefruits and gangrenous infections. Operating on the Duke is a huge honour for Robert and involves a complicated and unusual procedure: a ‘tracheotomy’.
Florence Nightingale (Milly Thomas)
Before her services in the Crimean War made her the infamous Lady with the Lamp (and everyone wanted a tea towel with her face on it), Florence Nightingale began her nursing career as a volunteer at hospitals in her young 20s.
Forthright, sharp, devout and determined Florence wants to bring about change in Victorian nursing. She immediately becomes an irritation to Robert. She has ridiculous new ideas about cleaning surgical instruments after use and is constantly opening windows. On top of that, Dr Hendrick fawns all over her due to her privileged upbringing and powerful social connections.
Charles Dickens (Andrew Scott)
At the height of his career Dickens was the most famous man in Britain. A huge literary star and influential social campaigner. Everyone read his novels. Everyone knew his views.
Caroline is a super-fan. When she’s invited to his house for dinner it’s like being invited into Bono’s yurt. However, despite his endless charity work and ability to read his own work out loud for hours at a time, Dickens isn’t quite what she expects. Sometimes it’s best not to meet your heroes…
Lady Nielson-Toy (Elizabeth Council)
A proud, wealthy and important patron of Dr Hendrick’s who, like so many people in this period, fears any kind of examination by surgeons. With a large abscess that needs removal, it’s important that Robert’s bedside manner is gentle and pleasant. Unfortunately neither of those words are in Robert’s vocabulary and it’s up to Florence Nightingale to step in and use her charm on the Lady.
Ollie (Austin Taylor)
Ollie (Austin Taylor)
Ollie is an orphan, who never knew his father. His mother collected horse dung before she became a tart. But despite his humble beginnings, Ollie is a cheeky, confident little thief and John decides to take him under his wing to train him as a dentist. He’s also good for trying drugs on.
Harold (Jamie Demetriou)
Harold is one of William’s patients with extreme monomania. Harold seems completely sane other than his fervent belief that French spies are out to get him, because he knows about their plan to overthrow parliament by filling the House of Commons with horse farts.
Harold believes he will be seized at any moment and put on trial for being a French Noble. In a pioneering experiment, William decides to stage a trial with the help of his reluctant friends and find Harold ‘innocent’ to cure him of his delusion. It seems like a good idea at the time.
Lady Campbell (Fenella Woolgar)
Lady Campbell is a shrewd, powerful and wealthy patron of medical science, who can catapult a Doctor to greatness by funding his endeavors. She enjoys her widowhood, putting her in a unique position of power in a man’s world.
Determined to secure her support, Robert asks Campbell to be his patron - but it becomes clear she’s interested in more than just the contents of his kit bag. How far is Robert willing to go to get her to open her purse? Pretty far as it turns out…
Dr George Combe (Miles Jupp)
George is a hoity, inquisitive, clubbable, slightly-too-friendly Doctor who takes a shine to Caroline and invites her for a drink at the Westminster Medical Club for some ‘intellectual company’.
Dr Flowers (Simon Farnaby)
Flowers is a colourful charlatan who peddles quackery on the high street with great success. The King of the Quacks. He makes a packet selling liniments and lotions that will cure fatness and drunkenness and Tuberculosis. Medicine is unregulated, so he’ll happily sell you a blend of opium, cannabis and chloroform for coughs and colds. Or a bottle of brown liquid for your virility problem - 100% guaranteed!
Llantha Kapoor (Kayvan Novak)
Kapoor is a mysterious, enigmatic Mesmerist. Mesmerism is a form of hypnotism, where clients would be put into deep trances due to the power of the mesmerists’ ‘animal magnetism’. It’s named after Franz Anton Mesmer, an 18th century Viennese physician who claimed he could manipulate the vital force that flows through every human being. In 19th Century medicine, some doctors still believed in the potential benefits of putting patients into trances during surgery.
When Caroline, William and John visit Kapoor at his Uncle’s curry house near the docks, it quickly becomes apparent that Kapoor has also picked up Mesmer’s habit of demonstrating entrancing stroking powers on young attractive women like Caroline…
Nicola Bell (Miranda Hennessy)
Nicola works in the apothecary with her father. She’s bright, talented and has a wicked streak. She’s perfect for John, who promptly falls in love with her - and her with him. But unfortunately she’s promised to another man - a wealthy Duke who can offer her more than an attic room full of teeth and pliers and drugs. Will true love prevail?
The Bishop of Lambeth (Roger Ashton-Griffiths)
The Bishop of Lambeth is a conceited hypocrite who owns brothels in Covent Garden. He also badly needs an appendectomy. But he’s terrified of surgery and forbids the use of drugs: he believes pain is a gift from God, and anaesthesia is ‘the devil’s decoy’. Robert is left with a dilemma when he learns that the Bishop pays the wages of all the nurses at his hospital. The Bishop must have the Operation he refuses to have.
Dr Wyatt (David Bamber)
Dr Wyatt is the stern, no-nonsense, old-fashioned head of the Hospital Asylum. He’s under increasing pressure to have results at the asylum - to find some cures for the lunatics. But none are presenting themselves and Wyatt is growing weary of William trying to get the patients to ‘express themselves’ by taking them painting in the park or putting on a production of The Knights of the Round Table. Dr Wyatt would much rather patients were given a cold bath or a session in ‘the rotating chair’.
Patrice Dupont (Ben Willbond)
Arrogant, handsome, brilliant and with luscious hair, Patrice is one of the greatest surgeons of his time. And now, to great excitement and acclaim, he’s arrived in London. He’s alarmingly like Robert, but French and even more popular and dashing. Robert is consumed with envy and must fix his downfall.
