Quacks (TV series)

Cast

Main characters

• Rory Kinnear as Robert Lessing, a showman surgeon who smokes cigarettes and wears a filthy bloodstained apron when performing operations before a public audience.
• Lydia Leonard as Caroline, Robert's wife.
• Mathew Baynton as William, an early psychologist and Robert's best friend.
• Tom Basden as John, an alcoholic and drug addict anaesthetist who owes money to a loan shark.
• Rupert Everett as Dr Hendricks, the paranoid and anti-Semitic principal of the medical school.

  Recurring characters

• Andy Linden as Fitz, the old warder at the lunatic asylum.
• Adam Ewan as Tom, Robert's working class assistant.
• Osi Okerafor as Butterworth, a debt collector who routinely threatens and assaults John.
• Lisa Jackson as Mina, William's fiancée.
• Miranda Hennesey as Nicola, John's lover.
• Selina Griffiths as a Matron

  One-off characters

• Millie Thomas as Florence Nightingale.
• Andrew Scott as Charles Dickens.
• Roger Ashton-Griffiths as the Bishop of Lambeth, a priggish puritan whose sermons against drugs and alcohol are a smokescreen for his secret sexual fetish for dressing up as Ben Hur and whipping prostitutes.
• Nicholas Blane as Francis Russell, 7th Duke of Bedford.
• Fenella Woolgar as Lady Elizabeth Campbell.
• Kayvan Novak as Mr Kapoor, an Indian restaurant owner who moonlights as a hypnotist.
• Simon Farnaby as Dr Flowers, purveyor of liniments and lotions.
• Ben Willbond as Patrice Dupont, a renowned surgeon.

  Episodes

Production

Critical response