Casualty (BBC1)

Never mind the sick, bleeding and "nice juicy headwound" requiring treatment, Duffy has other things on her mind. Lover Ryan has run off with everything, forcing her to move back in with nice dependable Charlie, and the three of them are determined to enact their own little Holby-set Ibsen drama.

For those who haven't seen Casualty lately, Duffy provides a rundown of the story so far once Ryan re-appears. "I don't know how you've got the nerve after all you've done to me and my kids. You took my money, my home, my life. I gave up everything for you and you just disappeared. We were going to be married, do you remember?" she says.

Of course he remembers but Duffy, being the caring person she is, knows there may be viewers who popped out of the room to make a cup of tea while her life was falling apart.

When Duffy - whom Ryan confusingly calls by her proper name Lisa - fails to win her round, he goes to see Charlie to ask him to persuade her to run away to New Zealand with him.

"I think you love her as much as I do," says Ryan, looking like he's going to cry if he doesn't get his own way.

Small medical matters, including a human fireball, a date rape victim and kidney transplant, keep getting in the way of Duffy/Lisa making up her mind. For reasons best known only to the scriptwriters, she decides to go away with Ryan.

"You're going, aren't you?" says Charlie petulantly.

"I've never stopped loving him, Charlie, that's why I hated him so much. He can never hurt me again as much as he has," explains Duffy/Lisa.

This hardly seems satisfactory motivation for spending the rest of her life with him. Then again, this is the same woman who, only a few moments before, was confessing to Ryan: "I swore if I ever saw you again I would kill you. Why am I even talking to you?"

For one moment, as she stood outside the casualty department, I thought (would it be wicked of me to say hoped?) she was going to be run down by the ambulance transporting Les Dennis. Alas no, she and Ryan walk off into the sunset, leaving Charlie looking a right Charlie once again.

Dennis was guesting as a nasty garage owner whose bullying drove one of his office staff Briony to suicide. Les the Horrid had a fight with her husband involving a burning cigar and a spilled can of inflammable liquid. Whoosh, and Les was toast. He deserved his comeuppance, after complaining that Briony's suicide attempt had cost him half a day's loss of trading.

Surgeon Harry Harper sounded not entirely sympathetic as he summed up the burns victim's chances. "He might last another 48 hours if he's lucky," he says matter-of-factly. This followed "Sorry, this isn't looking good" as another patient suffered a relapse. Perhaps he's simply cutting out the medical jargon and making his diagnosis understandable for the simplest of us.

Just in case you think Casualty doesn't live in the real world, there are occasional references to the state of the National Health Service. A man whose father offers him a kidney (and we're not talking about hospital meals) is reminded that he'll cost the NHS thousands of pounds in dialysis treatment if he refuses the offer. Never mind, I'm sure Charlie will talk him round.

Published: 14/04/2003