Sacha Levy

Storylines

Sacha has a one-night stand with Chrissie Williams (Tina Hobley). He then appears briefly in a locum registrar capacity, before, much to Chrissie's surprise, returning several months later on a six-month contract as a locum registrar on the hospital's general surgical ward, Keller, working alongside permanent registrar Jac Naylor (Rosie Marcel) and under consultant general surgeons Ric Griffin (Hugh Quarshie) and Michael Spence (Hari Dhillon). Sacha's post later became permanent, though he transferred to head up the hospital's Acute Assessment Unit (AAU) by director of surgery Henrik Hanssen (Guy Henry), after clinical lead Michael Spence became engaged working on the plastic surgery unit on Darwin ward with Sunil Bhatti.

Sacha continues to work on AAU alongside Chrissie, and he tries to win her over several times. Despite this, she enters into a relationship with Dan Hamilton (Adam Astill), and they become engaged to be married. However, when Dan is revealed to be gay, Chrissie becomes closer to Sacha and realizes that he is the man for her as he is so nice. She then goes on holiday to Australia with him, and they later become engaged as well. When Sacha is stabbed by an unstable patient, Chrissie and Michael just manage to save him, despite a lot of blood loss, and it later causes conflict between Chrissie and student doctor Ella Henderson, who left Sacha to bleed out of fear. However, Sacha convinces Chrissie to lay easy on her. They marry, despite Chrissie's original concerns, and return to work on AAU. Sacha tries to help fellow doctor Luc Hemmingway (Joseph Millson), who is having problems, and invites him for a turbulent Christmas dinner. Luc soon departs Holby after receiving advice from Sacha. Sacha befriends new doctor Gemma Wilde (Ty Glaser).

After a family holiday, Sacha's daughter Rachel is taken ill, and he is devastated to learn she has leukaemia. As her treatment begins, he shaves his head to show support to her. When he learns that Daniel is a bone marrow match and is potentially the only one that can save Rachel's life, he authorises the procedure without Chrissie's permission, creating problems between them. After a rocky few months, Chrissie takes Daniel and visits her father in Australia. When she returns, he learns through Daniel's nursery that she is back and suspects Chrissie of having an affair with Michael. However, it conspires she has breast cancer, which devastates Sacha. He later moves back in with Chrissie to support Daniel, but their separation continues.

Casting and characterisation

To compensate for the departing characters, several new characters joined the show during the course of the twelfth series. After appearing briefly as Chrissie's one-night stand, Bob Barrett became a main cast member playing Locum General surgical registrar Sacha Levy at Holby City Hospital.

Barrett was initially contracted for eight months as part of the main cast. In May 2012, Barrett stated "I love it here and that's always been the case – since day one, I've had a ball. I love the cast, the crew and the people who run the show - it's a great team. I love being part of a programme that people hold dearly – and I feel the responsibility of that, too. He told Daniel Kilkelly of Digital Spy that he wanted to remain a part of the cast as long as his character had "a journey".

Reception

A reporter from the Evening Chronicle branded him "the permanently disorganised Sacha". A writer of the Teesside Gazette said that they would never consider Sacha as a "dark horse" type of character. A Daily Mirror critic jested "Bumbling doctor Sacha has never been lucky in love himself, so it's no surprise that he thinks the worst when he sees Essie becoming friendly with a colleague."