Mel

Mel is partially deaf and from the start of RUSH she has been troubled about her identity. To her, the Deaf world is a ghetto. Her way out has always been to choose hearing boyfriends and to develop her ability to function in the hearing world.

'I enjoyed RUSH 4 immensely,' says Sarah Beauvoisin, who plays Mel. 'Although Mel is inwardly vulnerable, this time she is more confident, happier, and more in control of her life. She knows what she wants in her own way – Mel's a survivor.'

Since RUSH 3, Sarah has played Sian, a patient in BBC1's Holby City, screened in Sign Language Awareness Week. She was also in Sam Dore's short film Sinister and appeared on stage in The Vagina Monologues, directed by Jenny Sealey of Graeae Theatre. Sarah also recently worked for Deafinitely Theatre as a costumes/prop-maker and stage designer for a production of Motherland, and has attended a residential writing course at Holton Lee, organised by Writernet. She is currently writing a play.

Sarah's other acting credits include Louis Neethling's short film Dis?able, Ray Harrison Graham's production of The Dreamcatcher, the Graeae Theatre's children's play Message in a Bottle, a BBC Radio 4 solo drama Nobody's Perfect, and a new short animated film by Matt Hulse, Half Life. She has also taken the lead role in Interplay Theatre's Stepping Stones and Children of a Lesser God, for which she won an award.

In the future Sarah would like to appear in more films and mainstream television dramas, and also continue with her writing.

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