Casualty star Anna Chell, who plays Jodie Whyte in the long runnng BBC medical drama, has addressed a potential return for her on screen father Max.

Loyal fans will remember the TV hunk Nigel Harman, 51, played the role of her estranged dad who left the show back in March 2024.

Although his character wasn’t killed off, the pair didn’t part ways on the best of terms after Jodie had donated her kidney to him months before he left to South Sudan to join Medics of the World – a Doctors Without Borders style operation.

In recent episodes, Jodie has been after sleeping with Aaron, the husband of a woman who died after she and Dylan Keogh (Will Beck) delivered her baby following a dramatic car crash into the restaurant they were eating in.

She has now inadvertantly made him think that Dylan chose not to save his wife in the crash and he has subsequently reported Dylan to the hospital, which could have have huge repercussions for the medic.

Speaking exclusively to Express.co.uk about whether or not her father will make a return, Anna teased: “Oh, it’d be great to explore.

“I loved working with Nigel. We had a really, a great time. And I think I sort of thought about where storylines can go, and where your character will go in the future.

“I definitely thought, ‘I wonder if this moment for Jodie was the one they would bring Nigel back. You just don’t know, but I think it’d be really nice to work with him again and see how the Jody and Max story has developed. Because the audience were really invested in that as well.

The actress went on to open up about the sweet messages from fans about how the emotional storyline had impacted them. She went on: “It’s really nice to watch a father and daughter, who actually never knew each other develop [their relationship] and watch them navigate that. .

“And I think so many people invested in it, and also so many people were connecting with it. I remember having a lot of messages from people saying, ‘You’ve made me want to reach out to my father or my mother’. And I thought that’s great.”

While nothing has officially been announced regarding Nigel’s return, Anna confessed if he did come back it wouldn’t be easy to just pick up with his daughter after the callous way he left.

The soap siren went on: “She’s never gonna forget about how he treated her and how he just left. And there was the space. There was space in her life for a dad to come in and be that father figure. And he came in for two minutes and left. I think it’s really sad for Jodie,” she said.