a day ago
Casualty star Michael Stevenson reveals worrying Iain Dean twist
Iain Dean is one of the characters at the centre of the show's next mini-series (Picture: BBC)
The paramedic team at Holby City Hospital in Casualty has, for many years, been a supportive and strong group. The individuals have faced challenges but the team – led by Jan Jennings (Di Botcher) – always try their best to help each other out.
The structure of Team 3006 falls apart at the start of the medical drama's latest boxset, and one of the reasons why this happens is because of Jan's opinion on young paramedic Indie Jankowski (Naomi Wakszlak).
Last Saturday, Indie drove an ambulance into the front of the ED due to the accelerator jamming. It's this, on top of Indie's confession about the burglary, that makes Jan view her in a different light as Supply and Demand begins this evening.
Iain Dean, played by Michael Stevenson, believes that Jan should move on from Indie's mistakes. He knows exactly what it's like to end up in trouble with her and more often than not, she's forgiven him.
It's the frustration Iain feels towards Jan that makes a secondment offer at Hart even more tempting. Hart stands for Hazardous Area Response Team, and involves paramedics attending dangerous environments.
The paramedic team starts to fall apart (Picture: ITV)
Mike, who has played Iain since 2012, recently opened up about his new storyline. He told me more about Iain's offer, and what to expect as the character takes centre stage in this new mini-series.
'The offer that comes in for Hart, it sort of side-lines him a little bit and you know as much as he is happy that he's settled now and married and all that kind of stuff, you'll never take that element away from him that he is drawn to the excitement and the thrill of danger.
'He's been with Hems before, Hems is always a good shout for him to do because of the next level up of rescue that he gets to do and stuff like that, but Hart is a whole new level. That is his first temptation away from it, but then what reinforces that is the team around him that he's spent so long building and nurturing is slowly starting to fall apart and that only gets worse as things transpire after this episode.'
In a couple of weeks time, as Iain begins his training at Hart, he will receive an unexpected phone call. I'm not going to reveal the details of the call, but Michael has confirmed it will change the course of Iain's journey completely.
The latest boxset is called Supply and Demand (Picture: James Pardon/BBC)
'That completely affects him for the rest of the boxset. There's more to come on that. But that phone call again, feeds his desire to move forward with the Hart team. As much as that phone call affects him and he should be dealing with it, he shuts the call out to throw himself into Hart even more so.
'It is a coping strategy, a coping mechanism, a way of hiding from what's actually happening behind closed doors. In reality, he throws himself into Hart even more so after that call.'
A few years ago, Iain left Holby ED to join the team at HEMs. The decision came after he had struggled with his mental health and was in search of something new. Now, in 2025, it's possible history may repeat itself, as Iain starts to enjoy life at Hart as the paramedic team at Holby continues to face problems.
'It's a temporary thing at the moment but there's definitely potential for it to become more permanent. That excites him and is something that he would definitely be inclined to do really. The more fractured the team becomes, the more he gets a taste of a different side to being a paramedic. I think he would be inclined to take that on a more permanent basis, yes.'
The paramedic is offered a secondment at Hart (Picture: BBC)
'This boxset has been one of the most physically challenging and thrilling rides I think Iain's been on', he added.
'It's nice you enjoyed the happiness and the wedding in one episode, but we're not going to let you enjoy it for long!
'It's about what comes between the paramedics. It's about the team being fractured and how they all individually cope with it, who they side with, where's the camaraderie, where's the commitment to each other, there's lots of suspicion, lots of anger and resentment. That impacts people's lives away from work, as much as that's happening in the workplace, it affects everybody outside of it too.'
Michael remains a passionate cast member and is 'proud' to be part of Casualty. He notes that the Covid years did 'knock' the show back, but the team behind the scenes battled through the challenges and came out of it stronger than ever before.
Iain ponders over his future (Picture: BBC)
'I have seen it through various successes and then obviously the Covid years knocked us back a little bit, but again, you come out of Covid unbelievably proud of the team that we've got.
'We've pulled our audience back. A lot of continuing drama numbers have dropped over the years and never really regained, whereas we have. I think at one point we were down to something like a million, just over a million, maybe even dipped under just after Covid.
He added: 'And now we're back up to over three million a week viewers. The whole team, you look at the storylining team, the producers, the crew and everybody like that, we've done that together. The show is as strong now as what I feel it's ever been. We've had some really successful years over the past couple of years with all the BAFTAs and everything.'
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Away from life at Casualty, Michael has a side hustle – a production company called Cusp Films. Their short film, called The One Note Man, stars Jason Watkins and is narrated by Ian McKellen.
In 2023, the film was nominated for an Oscar. Following the success and many award wins, Michael and his team have now started focusing on other projects.
'It's not so much short films anymore! The One Note Man did what we needed it to do and we've gone forward now. TV series development is a longer game, you have to have the patience for that sort of thing. We've stepped away from the short films now.
'The success of The One Note Man got us in a few doors and now we can concentrate on developing some bigger stuff.'
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