'Doreen from fly-on-the-wall TV doc Ambulance was funnier than anyone on Fringe'

24 August 2023 , 20:46

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Doreen on the show

For anyone in need of a laugh after reading that rundown of the 2023 Edinburgh Fringe Festival’s top 10 jokes, help was at hand on BBC1 last night.

It came in the shape of a magnificent 89-year-old churchgoer called Doreen, who lit up the room in the first episode of the new series of the NHS fly-on-the-wall documentary Ambulance. Doreen had had a bit of a fall and was trying to explain to the paramedic where her pain was: “It’s my humerus bone. That’s why I’m laughing!”

Edinburgh promoters could do worse than give Doreen a week-long residency at the Gilded Balloon next summer. If she needs a support act she should take along the 999 call handler who dropped this gag in last night: “Why did the banana call an ambulance? Because he wasn’t peeling very well.”

That one would also have sailed into the Best of the Fringe list. Not least because it actually made sense. Those moments of light relief were certainly welcome. This opening episode may not have been as grim and unremitting as some we have seen, but it was still a tough watch.

Paramedics Jared and Jamie (BBC/Dragonfly Film and Television/Ryan McNamara)

And whatever your thoughts on who is to blame for the current crisis in the NHS, it once more reinforced the message that there are two groups who certainly should not be suffering because of it: the often elderly and bewildered patients, and the frontline workers. Even though it was filmed during the first wide-scale ambulance strikes in a generation, the filmmakers didn’t ram the politics home.

Teachers, civil servants and train drivers walk out in biggest strike in decade

They didn’t have to. All you needed to do was listen to the words of young ­paramedic Jared, who experienced more trauma on one shift than most people face in a lifetime. Explaining how he had ­wrestled with his conscience before eventually deciding to join the strike, Jared pointed out the blunt reality: “Even when we’re not on strike, the category 3 and 4 calls may not get an ­ambulance.”

Which reminds me – once she had been patched up, Doreen had another great one-liner for the crew: “You don’t realise what you’ve got till you’ve lost it.”

Ian Hyland