Rush is the powerful story of a group of friends, working hard, playing hard and struggling to make sense of their lives. Adam, Troy, Kelly, Maya, Nicky and Mel are deaf.

Rush follows each of them on a different journey as they try to live for the present, and fight for a future. A raw and original drama, Rush is a story about friendship, identity, secrets and lies, love and losing it. Rush started out as a continuing drama transmitted in short episodes as part of VEE-TV, Channel 4’s magazine series for young deaf people. We made four different series of Rush. Here is a clip from series IV...

Main Characters

Kelly (Samantha Baker) has been through the agonising experience of sexual abuse. At the end of Series 2, Kelly finally took steps to report her mother’s boyfriend to the police for what he had done to her life.

Adam (Jason Taylor) has always been very fond of Kelly, and protective towards her. When he found out her secret, he took the step of telling her mother the truth - against Kelly’s wishes. In lots of ways, Adam is the centre of the group – supporting his friends, keeping them together.

Troy (David Ellington) shares a flat with Adam and has been a bit of a womaniser – but the few times he got serious, the relationships came to nothing.

Nicky (Jonny Nelson) is the bad boy of the group, always in trouble, finally in prison. Now out of prison, he is trying hard to put his life back together – but as usual, in all the wrong ways.

Mel (Sarah Beauvoisin) inhabits an unhappy place between deaf and hearing worlds. Her choice has always been to hang out with hearing men, and in Rush 2 her persistence with one particular married man ended with her being badly beaten up. Maya (Deepa Shastri) is the big sister to her friends, supporting and advising them, strong, warm-hearted and very direct. She has feelings for Troy which she has never expressed.