Cal MacAninch plays Detective Inspector John Keenan, heading the Holby South force through twenty episodes of drug raids, gang warfare and domestic terrorism alerts. The series launched in May 2007 as a blue-light cousin to Holby City's medical corridors, though it ditched the hospital wards for custody suites and riot vans. Kacey Ainsworth commands as Inspector Jenny Black, while Zöe Lucker arrives in the second run as John's estranged wife, complicating both his private life and professional judgement.
Created by Tony Jordan after his EastEnders departure, the show promised a grittier take on regional policing than Casualty's accident-prone Saturday nights. The rookie officer arc fell to Elaine Glover's Lucy Slater, partnered with Jimmy Akingbola's Neil Parker, whose first year on the job included undercover stings gone wrong and a station siege. Ratings slid from a healthy 5.5 million opener to below 3 million by the second series finale, sealing its fate when the BBC sought fresh drama budgets in 2008.
The final episode leaves Keenan suspended after evidence tampering, Black contemplating transfer, and Holby South's terrorism taskforce folded into a wider county operation. No cliff-hanger was planned; the writers wrote towards closure once the cancellation notice arrived mid-production. The twenty hours now function as a time capsule of late-noughties procedural style, shot on Bristol's streets doubling for an unnamed English coastal city, with archive boxes labelled "Holby" the only reminder of its medical parentage.
Production Details
BBC One / 2 Seasons / 20 Episodes / 2007
Created by: Tony Jordan
Writer(s): Tony Jordan, Jeff Povey
Main Cast
David Sterne as Desk Sergeant Edward 'Mac' McFadden
Sara Powell as Rachel Barker (Crown Prosecution Service)
Elaine Glover as Rookie Lucy Slater
Joe Jacobs as Constable William 'Billy' Jackson
Kieran O'Brien as Constable Robert Clifton
Jimmy Akingbola as Constable Neil Parker
Kacey Ainsworth as Inspector Jenny Black
Chloe Howman as Kelly Cooper
James Hillier as Custody Sergeant Christian Young
Zöe Lucker as Kate Keenan
Richard Harrington as Luke French
Cal MacAninch as Detective Inspector John Keenan
