It was created by the same team behind the sketch show Smack the Pony – Channel 4 commissioner Caroline Leddy and producer Victoria Pile – and stars Mark Heap, Tamsin Greig, Stephen Mangan and Julian Rhind-Tutt.

Caroline works alongside two other doctors: Guy Secretan (Stephen Mangan), an arrogant, half-Swiss, womanising anaesthetist, and "Mac" Macartney (Julian Rhind-Tutt), a suave, fashionable surgeon.

Other people Caroline meets include Martin Dear (Karl Theobald), a friendly house officer who is constantly failing his exams.

Joanna's staff include Kim Alabaster (Sally Bretton); Naughty Rachel (Katie Lyons); Harriet Schulenburg (Olivia Colman), an overworked mother of four trapped in an unhappy marriage; and Karen Ball (Lucinda Raikes), who is often bullied by Kim and Rachel.

Unusually for a British sitcom, which typically has only one or two writers, the show had eight: Pile, her husband Robert Harley,[4] Gary Howe, Stuart Kenworthy, Oriane Messina, Richard Preddy, Fay Rusling and James Henry.

Pile and her co-writers initially used battery packs to represent characters, moving them around on her desk to develop scenarios for the show.

[7] The music, which features prominently in the show, was written by Jonathan Whitehead (under the name "Trellis") and won him an RTS Craft & Design Award.

Scenes from the pilot were used in the first episode, "Caroline's First Day", and can be spotted due to the characters' appearance, most notably Rhind-Tutt's haircut.

This presented a problem because the show had to work around the real-life hospitals, with their actual doctors, patients and emergency situations.

[11] Pile originally wanted the show to cover the entire hospital, not just doctors, but porters, car park attendants and kitchen staff.

[13] Guest actors who appear in this series include John Oliver, Stephen Merchant, Kevin Eldon and Rosie Cavaliero.

Sue asks Martin, Joanna, Guy, and Alan for the money, which she eventually manages to raise, but Mac runs off before she can get hold of him.

The only exception is the character of Dr. Angela Hunter (played by Sarah Alexander), who appears in the first three episodes and then leaves the hospital.

[28][29] Guest actors who appear in this series include Nick Frost, Peter McDonald, Big Mick and Rosie Cavaliero.

Apart from Harley, other Green Wing writers make cameo performances in the show, including Fay Rusling and Oriane Messina.

Mac, after a month's leave, discovers what has happened between Caroline and Guy, and although hurt, makes no attempt to interfere.

The episode concludes with Caroline being carried into the air by a mass of helium filled balloons at the wedding reception.

Caroline is now a medical pioneer in the USA, Guy has become a TV personality, and Mac has returned from several near-death experiences to continue working as a surgeon.

Following their murder spree Joanna is now in prison, while Statham's lawyers got him a reduced sentence involving psychiatric care, and he is now working under Boyce.

When the first series was broadcast, he praised the cast and characters, but commented negatively on the filming style and dramatic qualities.

The story lines were negligible; there were no catch phrases; it was surreal in a way we hadn’t seen since Monty Python; and the cast were actors being funny from inside a characterisation, not stand-up comics bolting a cartoon persona onto the back of gags.

[39] "Housewarming Party" was also watched at the "Wingin' It Green Wing convention", being voted the favourite episode in, "A landslide victory".

"[41]Gill was also highly critical of the episode in The Sunday Times: "Within two minutes, Green Wing had destroyed itself, lost its assured grip on the cliff of comedy and tumbled into the abyss of embarrassing overacting, formless gurning and pointless repetition.

The lack of plot and coherent narrative that previously had been a blessed freedom was revealed to be a formless free-for-all, brilliant performances as silly mannerisms.

"[42]Chris Riley for the Daily Telegraph gave a more mixed review of the series, writing that it was "so far proving oddly impenetrable—particularly given how, first time around, it consistently demonstrated what a firm grasp it had on when to cut loose, and when to deliver more conventional laughs.

"[43] The Observer was more positive, with Kathryn Flett voting Green Wing as one of the top ten television programmes of 2006.

[55] Greig received a BAFTA nomination for Best Comedy Performance in 2005, losing to David Walliams and Matt Lucas.

[56] A third series of Green Wing was not made, due to scheduling difficulties with the cast and crew undertaking new projects, and a lack of budget at production company talkbackTHAMES.

However, creator Victoria Pile mentioned in a 2007 interview in the Radio Times that she may create a spin-off, saying, "I'm hoping to do another Channel 4 comedy imminently, possibly starring some of the same cast.

[59] Green Wing appeared in an episode of the BBC documentary series Imagine, entitled A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Studio.