Former Casualty actress to join The Bill

Former Doctors and Casualty actress Sarah Manners will join the cast of ITV’s The Bill.

Tabloid newspaper The Sun is reporting that actress Sarah Manners will join the cast of The Bill as PC Kristy Knight. The character is the first new addition to the cast of the police drama since it moved to a 9pm slot and underwent its much published revamp. Along with taking on a grittier, darker look the series also ditched its iconic theme tune in favour of something more ‘modern’ and also introduced incidental music. As the series was reducing their numbers of episodes per year by half several characters were written out of the series with actor Tony Stamp, who is the longest serving actor on the series, bowing out as PC Tony Stamp in November. Also due to depart are former Hollyoaks actors Gary Lucy and Ali Bastian both of whom quit the series for other projects.

Actress Sarah Manners will probably still be familiar to audiences for her role in Casualty as snobby receptionist Bex Reynolds, a role she played between 2003 and 2005. Prior to joining the prime-time medical series she appeared in daytime series Doctors, also playing a receptionist – Joanna Helm. Her other roles include the first series of Mile High, Hollyoaks: Moving On and Mayo. In 2004 she was a contestant on Strictly Come Dancing coming sixth with partner Brendan Cole.