The practice of TV programme producers using one of the same small
group of supporting cast actors in different programmes, because they choose "characters" rather than actors, thus there's no time wasted "getting themselves into the part" required.
These actors will
play similar characters to that which they
played in another recent drama, some as in period dramas, even wearing similar costumes to those they wore before.
It seems that sometimes, as soon as these people "exit stage
right" in one drama, round they come again "entering stage
left" in something else.
"The Magic Roundabout" is the title of a children's stop-action cartoon series. A roundabout being shown during the opening credits
In the
BBC medical series "Bodies" Chrissy Farrell was seen each week as the hospital's departmental manager Vicky Hall.
A week or so after this series ended, she turned up in another
BBC medical
soap, "Casualty," as a patient in a ward bed, but she played her part no differently, same north-eastern accent. It was as if "Vicky Hall" had had an accident and was suffering from amnesia.
She'd been on The
Magic "cast" Roundabout. "Magically," appearing as someone else almost immediately after she'd disappeared from another drama.
It happens in films, but not so frequently, an example would be Elisha Cook
Jr. who played a petty small
time crook in dozens of films.