Casualty's Gemma: 'Tamzin lies to cover herself!'

Casualty's Gemma: 'Tamzin lies to cover herself!'
Casualty's Gemma: 'Tamzin lies to cover herself!'

Gemma Atkinson reveals paramedic Tamzin's terrible error in judgement in Saturday's Casualty (BBC1)... Tamzin gets herself into some bother this week. What can you tell us? "Jay, a drunk driver, causes a terrible road accident involving a family with a young baby. While Tamzin is trying to treat Jay he’s really abusive and aggressive towards her. She can’t get a neck brace on him, so when the family’s car tips over a verge she leaves Jay to help Jeff and the family, as they seem to need her more." That doesn’t sound too terrible... "Morally I think she did the right thing, but professionally she should have stayed with her patient and put the neck brace on. Tamzin’s really professional, but she’s a bit naive. If he’d been co-operative she would have stayed with him, but because he’s swearing and being horrible she neglects him. Later it looks like he may be paralysed – possibly because she didn’t put his neck brace on in time." How does this snowball on her? "At the scene Jeff asks her about Jay and she claims he refused treatment. She feels terrible lying about it because Jeff is one of her best friends. It gets worse later when Jeff has to fill out a form about what happened. Tamzin’s in a position where she can either come clean about what really happened or carry on with the lie in the hope that nothing more will come of it." Does this have consequences further down the line? "I won’t say what happens other than this storyline continues and there are going to be a lot of emotional scenes between Tamzin and Jeff! Also, Jeff and Dixie’s relationship is really tested too. Until now the three of them have been a great team, but you’ll see the cracks start to show between them. It opens up a can of worms!" It’s a pretty gory programme sometimes. Does working on Casualty make you feel squeamish? "I don’t really feel squeamish by things I see. For me it’s smells that do it. Thankfully a lot of the prosthetics that are used in Casualty smell of chemicals so they aren’t gross! It’s really interesting actually when you walk by the make-up corridor and see a table with just bloody limbs on it!" How does working on Casualty compare to other jobs you’ve done? "This job is brilliant! I really love working with Matt Bardock and Jane Hazlegrove, who play Jeff and Dixie. We have such a great laugh. In fact, by the end of the day my stomach usually hurts from laughing. I’ve never had that with a job before!"

Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 


An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.