Leslie Ash: 'It was a big step for me' (VIDEO)

Leslie Ash: 'It was a big step for me' (VIDEO) (Image credit: BBC)

Leslie Ash has admitted it was a 'big step' for her to return to TV this week as Holby City's new CEO Vanessa Lytton. The actress - who appeared in the sitcom Men Behaving Badly throughout the 1990s - feared her career was over when she was left unable to walk after contracting MSSA in hospital in 2004. Talking about her new role in the BBC medical drama, Leslie told whatsontv.co.uk: "It's a big part, a big undertaking and also I am a disabled actress now. "I'm not trying to pretend not to be disabled - my character, Vanessa, is disabled. It was a big step for me." Revealing more about Vanessa, Leslie said: "It's quite difficult to know what she's thinking because she does everything with a smile. She's very calculated; there's a real edge to her." CLICK below to watch an interview with Leslie Ash

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.