THE CAST OF Survivors underwent major changes throughout the course of the programme's three-year run. Only one of the leading characters on the programme was a consistent feature of all three series.

 Series one

The three main characters in series one were the previously privileged housewife Abby Grant (played by Carolyn Seymour); single London secretary Jenny Richards (Lucy Fleming) and strong-willed civil engineer Greg Preston (Ian McCulloch). When these three survivors meet in the aftermath of The Death, they agree to found a settlement – a community which can share the burdens and challenges of finding a way forward in the new world. Through their individual and collective adventures these survivors endure numerous calamities and threats to their existence, and the first series ends with a surge of optimism about the future now opening up before them.

 Series two

At the start of the second series, that sense of renewed hope is consumed in flames. When the Grange community is destroyed by a devastating fire, the remaining survivors relocate to the nearby Whitecross community – established by the charismatic and driven Charles Vaughan (Denis Lill), a character they had met several months before. With Abby Grant having left the community in the hope of reuniting with her missing son, it is architect Charles Vaughan that joins Greg and Jenny to form the series' leading triumvirate of characters. At the close of series two, Greg leaves Whitecross in a hot-air balloon to begin a journey to Norway in the hope of restarting factory technologies that have lain dormant since The Death.

 Series three

In series three, with the programme uprooted from Whitecross, it is the character of the shepherd and frequent-malcontent Hubert Cartwright (John Abineri) who joins Charles and Jenny on the travels across the country - as they attempt to reunite with the returned Greg Preston and to encourage the growth of economic, social and political reconstruction.

In the first two series of Survivors, the programme's lead characters are supported by an ensemble cast of characters - principally the other individual who settle at the Grange and Whitecross settlements. In the final series, with the programme once again mobile, there is a higher proportion of one-off or short-run guest characters sharing the screen with the show's leads.

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