If you tuned into Casualty at the weekend, you may have spotted a familiar face from Coronation Street – actor Martin Hancock.
The star, 55, is best known for playing Spider Nugent in the ITV soap between 1997 and 2003, reprising the role more recently for a year from 2022.
Nephew of Street legend Emily Bishop (Eileen Derbyshire), Spider was known for his environmental activism and his relationship with Toyah Battersby (Georgia Taylor).
The pair caused chaos with the Weatherfield locals back in the day, attempting to make their Greater Manchester suburb greener in the most outlandish ways.
More recently, we discovered he was now working as an undercover cop, investigating the far right extremist gang that terrorised a number of Toyah’s neighbours.
To the disappointment of fans, he was forced to leave the cobbles for his own protection.
It came as quite a surprise to viewers of BBC medical drama Casualty, when he cropped up as a prisoner in last week’s instalment.
‘Is Spider still undercover or is he really a convict? #Casualty’ asked one fan on X, and they weren’t the only one expressing their surprise.
‘Is that #Spider from Coronation Street in @BBCCasualty as the prisoner?’ asked another.
A third exclaimed: ‘Spider from Corrie has gone off the rails a bit #casualty.’
Appearing in the third episode of the Internal Affairs boxset, Martin portrayed Samuel Jankowski, the estranged father of student paramedic Indie (Naomi Wakszlak).
After her introduction last year, viewers have seen Indie deal with the loss of her grandmother, which has ultimately left her homeless.
She was later dealt a financial lifeline when a patient discovered her predicament and offered her a wad of cash.
Knowing that it was ethically wrong to take it, she declined the offer, but later in the day she learnt that the woman had died. In the moments prior to her passing, she had placed the money into an envelope for Indie and left it at the reception desk.
In Saturday’s episode, she and Jacob Masters (Charles Venn) attended a call at Wyvern Prison, where there had been some disruption between inmates.
Indie was gobsmacked to see the injured party was her father, who had been stabbed. He was adamant that she help treat his wounds, but she became started and accidentally knocked the weapon.
After rushing off, Indie agreed to sit in the ambulance with Samuel – and referred to him as her father.
The dad and daughter then had a heart to heart when he arrived at the ED, and she revealed that his absence at her gran’s funeral had only worsened their already fractured relationship.
Elsewhere in the episode, new Clinical Lead Flynn Byron, played by Call the Midwife’s Olly Rix, continued to cause a stir in the wake of Tariq Hussein’s (Manpreet Bachu) departure, and Rida Amaan (Sarah Seggari) accepted a new job in surgery.
Stevie Nash (Elinor Lawless) received an update on the mass found on her ovary, and later we saw a mystery person watching her from afar.
It’s going to be quite a busy time at Holby City Hospital in the coming weeks, as an ambulance crashes into the reception, and favourites Iain Dean (Michael Stevenson) and Faith Cadogan (Kirsty Mitchell) tie the knot.
