Leslie Ash ‘making TV comeback after 11-year hiatus with BBC’s Doctors’

Leslie Ash is reportedly due to make a TV comeback after 11-year hiatus with BBC soap opera Doctors.

The Men Behaving Badly star, 61 is said to be joining the daytime soap in the role of Mary McRae.

According to The Sun, Leslie will make her debut on the BBC One drama later this summer.

A source told the paper: “It’s a big deal for Leslie to be back on the mainstream channels.

“Merseybeat and Men Behaving Badly were a long time ago and she’s been focusing on smaller personal projects which are made through her company BooksOffice.

“It’s only a short stint on Doctors but hopefully it reminds the nation what a talent she is and gets her name back out there a bit more for other roles.”

Leslie rose to fame in the film Quadrophenia in 1979 and on the sitcom Men Behaving Badly when it ran between 1992 and 1997.

She later had parts in the ITV drama series Where the Heart Is from 2000 to 2003, a role in cop drama Merseybeat in 2004, but her last regular acting role was in BBC medical drama Holby City from 2009 to 2010.

In 2014 she was a contestant on Celebrity Masterchef, while last year she reunited with her Quadrophenia co-star Phil Daniels for the film To Be Someone.

In 2019, Leslie spoke to The Guardian about her nearly fatal health woes after falling ill with methicillin-sensitive staphylococcus aureus (MSSA) in 2004, later undergoing physiotherapy, exercise, and changing her dietary and health habits.

However, she said she felt like a “zombie” due to the medication she was on.

She said: “I really feel like I’ve lost 10 years out of my life.”

However, afyer she came off of all medication in 2019, Leslie says she felt like she had “woken up, like a film, like a dream”.

The time out from working in her industry had left her career in a different place, with Leslie telling the paper: “All doors were shut. All doors were shut.”

It seems Doctors could possibly be Leslie’s big comeback.

Leslie is married to former footballer Lee Chapman, 61, and they share two sons: Joseph, 31, and Max, 28.