Staying Alive (TV series)

Staying Alive is a British television medical drama series written and created by Neil McKay, first broadcast on ITV on 1 November 1996. The series, which follows a group of student nurses working in a London hospital, starred Jessica Hynes, Amanda Royle and Susannah Wise in the title roles, alongside Paul Higgins, Sophie Okonedo,[1] Jenny Bolt, Sean Blowers and Ayub Khan-Din.[2] Co-produced and partially filmed in London, Staying Alive was one of the first ITV dramas to be co-produced between LWT and an international production company.

Across two series, a total of twelve episodes were broadcast. Episodes were broadcast at 9:00pm on Fridays as part of LWT's new-look slate of British drama.[3] For the second series, a number of new regular cast members were introduced, including Ian Fitzgibbon, Susan McArdle and Rupert Procter. In 1996, a docudrama series with the same name aired on Channel 4, following the lives of six people from different countries around the world infected by the HIV virus. Subsequently, there was some confusion as several TV listings magazines confused the two programmes in the listings guide.[4] Notably, the series has never been released on VHS or DVD.