Producers of BBC One’s Casualty have confirmed that former Cagney & Lacey star Sharon Gless is joining the show’s cast later this year.
Gless, who also starred in the US remake of Queer As Folk, will play Zsa Zsa Harper-Jenkinson, a maestro of surgery and former mentor to the ED’s Dylan Keogh (Will Beck).
“I’m a rabid Anglophile. Some of our finest American TV is British,” said the actress, adding, “Zsa Zsa is a wonderful character and I hope you all enjoy her too.”
It’s also been revealed that the next series will open with a two-part story focussed on Dylan who, with colleagues David (Jason Durr), Louise (Azuka Oforka) and Alicia (Chelsea Halfpenny) heads to a refugee camp in Northern France to offer medical assistance.
The story sees Dylan bonds with 12 year-old Sanosi and his sister Mariam at the camp, and later finds himself in a difficult situation over their future.
Beck, who plays Dylan Keogh, says: “It was so nice to do a story set away from the hospital, the look and feel is more filmic.
“The main thing however was the importance of telling this story, which has been slightly forgotten in the news recently, and realising, when you boil it down to one human story, just how relevant it still is.”
