‘It needed to be gruesome'

Amanda Redman tells TV Times how her own horrific experience inspired a storyline…

- Ian MacEwan

Last week’s vicious acid attack on new nurse Jyoti was the most hard-hitting storyline to date in ITV’s Sunday-night medical drama The Good Karma Hospital.

This week, as Jyoti (Sayani Gupta) undergoes skin graft treatment, Dr Lydia Fonseca (Amanda Redman) gets more personally involved in the aftermath of the assault as she confronts Jyoti’s fiancé and clashes with the police over the case.

The storyline was suggested by Amanda, 62, who suffered 90% burns to her body when she was a toddler after accidentally pulling a boiling pan of soup on herself.

TV Times visited Amanda on set in Sri Lanka, where the South India-set drama is filmed, and here, in a candid interview, she shares with us her inspirational story…

Why did you want the acid attack storyline to be included in the show?

Acid attacks are very prevalent in India and, sadly, are becoming more so in our own country. I work quite closely with a couple of burns charities, and I thought it would be a good story that would fit very well in the series.