The story so far

RUSH explores the lives of a group of six friends – Kelly, Adam, Troy, Nicky, Mel, Maya – who met while they were students at a mainstream college. Now in its third series, RUSH has moved on and the students have left college. But the drama stays focused on their relationships, their ambitions, and their struggle to make sense of their lives.

Kelly has had a traumatic time. At the end of the first series, the truth behind her relationship with Alan, her mother's boyfriend, was finally revealed. Alan had sexually abused her. In the second series, Alan returned to try to persuade Kelly not to go to the police. Finally, after struggling in her own way to put the past behind her, Kelly decided that the only way she could be free was to press charges against him.

Kelly's friend Adam is the sort of person others depend on. He keeps the group together. He's always been very fond of Kelly and protective towards her. He also fancies her. But at the end of the second series, as a result all the pressures she was experiencing, Kelly decided to distance herself from Adam and prevent a more serious relationship developing between them.

Adam is also very close to Troy, and in the second series they found a flat together. Troy has two major talents – for basketball and for women. In the first series, he was preoccupied with the idea of having a cochlear implant to help him develop his sporting career. The dilemma opened up a struggle with his sense of identity. In the second series, he seemed to have put the thought of having a cochlear implant behind him. Women became his main priority and he used the shared flat as the setting for his many one-night stands. But when he finally met a woman he wanted a relationship with – Maya's friend Bella – she rejected him as too selfish and irresponsible.

Nickyis the bad boy of the group. Funny and clever but easily bored and unable to focus, he has a disturbed family background. In trouble with the law over a string of incidents, Nicky finally broke his community service order and ended up in prison. The experience was very painful, but Nicky is a survivor. At the end of the second series, he has just been released.

Like Nicky, Mel is partially deaf and there's a rapport between these two. Mel is caught between the deaf and hearing worlds. She has a history of bad relationships with hearing men, and one particular married man, Richard, has given her a lot of pain. In the second series, Mel took her revenge on him, using his credit card, stalking him and causing problems with his wife. He retaliated by beating her savagely, putting her in hospital on a life-support machine. Mel has always been jealous of Kelly, and her behaviour to Kelly has been spiteful.

Michael is a teacher at the college, utterly committed to Deaf issues and to his students. In the first series, Michael was accused of sexual harassment by Mel, in an attempt to protect herself, as Michael was pressing her to account for her frequent absences from college and erratic behaviour. He confronts the experience by coming out about being gay. In the second series, he had an intense relationship with a new student, Tony, but ended it before both of them were in too deep.

Annie, Michael's teaching colleague, originally wanted a relationship with Michael and couldn't understand why he kept his distance. She supports him through Mel's accusation of sexual harassment, and emerged in the second series as a much more confident, independent person.

Maya is always the big sister to her friends, supporting Kelly, advising Nicky and finally encouraging Michael to face up to the conflict between his openness about Deaf issues and his secrecy about his own sexuality. Maya is strong, warm-hearted and very direct. She is fond of all the group, apart from Mel, and has feelings for Troy which she has never expressed.

Nigel, the caretaker, enjoys the company of the students, and hangs around in an endearing, clumsy way, telling bad jokes and stories. In the second series, he got seriously into debt. To try and get away from Casey, the man he owed money to, he attempted to blackmail Michael about his relationship with Tony, the student. Michael refused to give in to blackmail, but gave the desperate Nigel enough money to leave and escape Casey.

At the end of the second series, the group waited anxiously for news of Mel as her life hung in the balance. Finally they heard that she was going to come through, and the last episode ended in celebration for Mel's survival and Nicky's release from prison. But there was a sense that the stronger members of the group needed to reach out and support Mel and Nicky more.

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