Natalie Cassidy Lands Eight-Part BBC One Series With Big Mountain
natalie cassidy is fronting an eight-part One and iPlayer series that follows her through care settings in Northern Ireland. Big Mountain Productions has commissioned the project, and the scale is unusual for a presenter-led factual series: 24 institutions and around 450 contributors were involved.
Those numbers put the series in a different bracket from a small-access documentary. The production team built it around participation as well as observation, which means Cassidy is not just visiting settings but training, listening and learning across stages from early life through to palliative care.
Charlie, Sonia Fowler and care
For Cassidy, the subject is personal. Big Mountain Productions said she answered the question “what would you be if you weren’t an actress?” with “a carer.”
She has played Sonia Fowler in EastEnders for the last 30 years, but the series draws on work she has already done away from the screen. Cassidy cared for her family in the background and nursed her father, Charlie, through illness to the end of his life.
24 institutions across Northern Ireland
The production worked with 24 institutions across Northern Ireland and beyond, which gives the series reach well beyond a single facility or specialty. That footprint also explains why safeguarding, confidentiality and trust were central concerns for the team.
Ally Thompson led the production as senior producer, with people who had experience in mental health, education and frontline care. That mix points to a series built to handle more than a simple on-camera walk-through, especially in settings where access and consent matter as much as the footage itself.
One and iPlayer
The commission for One and iPlayer gives the project a mainstream platform before any audience response arrives. Big Mountain Productions said it aims to entertain, inform and create a genuine sense of connection with audiences, and this series looks designed to do that by treating care as lived experience rather than abstract policy.
For viewers, the practical value is in the format: eight parts, a presenter with direct lived experience, and a production that reaches across early life to palliative care. If the series lands as intended, it should be one of those rare factual commissions that makes the system visible without flattening the people inside it.
