TV Drama Series Plaudit for University Lecturer

A lecturer in TV screenwriting at Glasgow Caledonian University has received one of the highest accolades she could ever hope for: an episode she penned for the BBC drama series, Casualty, has been voted the most popular among viewers.

Ann Marie di Mambro has worked on numerous TV projects, including EastEnders, The Inspector Lynley Mysteries and River City.

And her Casualty episode, The End of the Line, has just been voted the best episode in an online poll of fans to celebrate 25 years of the show.

Says a statement issued by the university, The End of the Line (broadcast in September 2003 as the opening episode of series 18) saw Casualty’s medics thrown into the centre of a terrifying train crash. It was watched by more than nine million viewers.

And di Mambro is to attend a special screening – on Tuesday – of the episode at the university, where she is a lecturer on a MA TV Fiction Writing course, the first full-time university course of its kind in Britain.

di Mambro joined Glasgow Caledonian University two years ago, when the course was launched.

The statement quotes di Mambro as saying: “I was thrilled when I knew my episode had won.

“I worked with some fantastic people on that show. Casualty is television fiction writing at its finest. How to write for a long running drama such as Casualty is central to the MA in Television Fiction Writing.

“This screening has been arranged by my colleague, Chris Dolan, who is also a television writer. Everything Chris and I do in this course relates directly to the television industry. We hope this episode will give students further insight into how to tell stories on television.”

The MA course was set up in collaboration with Shed Media, the production company behind dramas including Footballers’ Wives and Bad Girls.