The couple are together in real life but Ronnie won’t be attending Holby any time soon! (Pictures: BBC/George Wood/Getty Images)

Now Jac Naylor (Rosie Marcel) has departed from Holby City, Darwin Ward needs a new clinical lead.

Sahira Shah (Laila Rouassa) will make her return to the hospital tomorrow to run Darwin Ward and over the weekend, Laila was on Saturday Kitchen with her husband and snooker legend Ronnie O’Sullivan.

With soaps using the two metre rule when filming, it means any scenes that involve two characters being in close proximity either have to be altered or, a family member must be called in to replace the other actor. During Laila and Ronnie’s appearance on Saturday Kitchen, they revealed he wasn’t able to be used as a body double because he was too hairy to be a patient.

Laila told presenter Matt Tebutt: ‘It’s so funny. What happens now is if you’ve got to touch somebody, like a patient, you’ve got to know them, they’ve got to be in your bubble. So they bring in somebody that’s in your bubble and just cut away. I was like ‘oh yeah Ronnie can come’ and they looked at his pictures and they said ‘no no, he’s just too hairy – we’re never going to be able to match them’.

Laila continued: ‘So he didn’t come in in the end. I think it would have been fun to have him as a supporting artist. I think it’s the Italian [in him].’

And although Ronnie won’t be appearing on the BBC drama, Laila will make her big comeback tomorrow, but things are set to go wrong for Sahira during an operation, and she will be left heartbroken by what ensues in theatre.