The cat's finally out of the bag Holby fans! Following last week's shock revelation that Ange Godard is Dominic Copeland's real mother, on Tuesday night, Dom himself finally uncovered the truth. David Ames discusses the fall-out...
Holby City star David Ames talks about Dom's shock discovery...
In Tuesday night's Holby City, we saw Carole (Julia Deakin) telling Dom he's adopted. Describe how he's feeling in that moment...
"Dom's dumbfounded. It's rare that Dom's caught without having some sort of comeback but here he's completely floored. He walks away in a bit of a trance and spends most of the day just trying to get his head around this absolutely life-changing news."
What's going around in his head?
"All of sudden, everything Dom knew is completely… I wouldn't say made-up because he has a beautiful bond with Carole… but suddenly it feels to him that their relationship has been based on lies, secrecy and deceit. And that leaves a real sour taste in Dom's mouth."
What Dom doesn't know at that point, though, is that his colleague, Ange Godard (Dawn Steele), is his biological mother! As he tells Ange his 'news', she tries to support him without giving anything away…
"Dom confides in Ange who, in her own little way, tries to make him see the other side of the story. Ange tries to reassure Dom, saying he doesn't know what his biological mum went through and he doesn't know their reasons behind giving him up. And, in terms of his relationship with Carole, he's got a loving mother who'd given him a great childhood. But obviously, at this point, Dom doesn't realise how emotionally draining that must be for Ange to be giving him all this information and seeing him so upset."
However, later in theatre, Dom suspects Ange knows more about his family situation than she's letting on. Then comes to the shock realisation for Dom that Ange is his mother! That's awkward - especially as they're operating at the time…
"I know! As often happens in Holby, these emotional scenes take place over someone's open chest, so Dom and Ange are in quite an awkward situation. Dom doesn't quite understand why there seems to be some sort of secrecy going on between Carole and Ange but he pieces all the weird stuff together and suddenly it all adds up. Dom can’t deal with the situation, so he runs out of theatre as fast as he can away from Ange then, outside, confronts her about whether she's his real mum. When she doesn't deny it, his mind is completely blown!"
Dom breaks down in tears. He must be so confused…
"He is! This news is absolutely life-altering. It's one thing to deal with having been told that your mother isn't your mother. But then to suddenly realise that, actually, you've been working alongside your real mother this whole time without even knowing it, is just an absolute mind-bender. He struggles to comprehend it."
So, how are things between Dom and Ange in the coming weeks? Are they able to build any sort of relationship?
"To begin with, as you can imagine, it's fairly tumultuous. Dom doesn’t feel that much effort is being made by Ange to bridge this huge gap in his life and he feels he’s coming up against a brick wall a lot of the time because she’s also struggling with this information. They’ve basically got to start from scratch, really, to build a relationship, a bond and trust and all those kinds of things. It will be a very rough ride for both of them I think.”
And what's his relationship like with Carole, the woman who raised him?
"Dom is particularly cold and spiteful towards Carole going forward because he’s hurt and he’s lashing out. In his eyes, she withheld information from him that she should have told him at an earlier age, so that he could have made his own choices about whether he wanted to contact his birth mother or not. So he feels kind of betrayed by Carole. It’s going to be really difficult for them to both work through; there are a few episodes where you see Dom really not enjoying even being around her – but Carole adores Dom, he’s her little boy, so it breaks her heart."
Aww… poor Carole…
"I know! Julia, who plays Carole, is so wonderful to work with and everyone adores her. So it was actually quite hard filming those scenes because I did feel like such a b******! But if we know anything about Dom, he’ll deal with things in his own time and in his own way."
How did you react when you learned the storyline was going to explore Dom being adopted?
"It was an idea that I spoke to producers about a couple of years ago and they thought it would be a good way of illustrating how Dom has always felt like an outsider. He doesn’t understand why he is the way he is when looking at both his parents and it’s always confused him. Dom’s always joked that he must have been adopted, so this suddenly explains everything. Over these next few months, I’m hoping we explore the idea that you don’t have to be blood to be a mother or a father – it's just a role you take on, it's the love that you give and it's the relationship you build."
Holby City continues on Tuesdays at 8pm on BBC1.
