The Much Deserved Applause & Acclaim of Emmerdale

While all the soaps are worthy of applause and acclaim in their own rights, Emmerdale certainly deserves a special mention of late. Ever since Kate Oates took the reins as Executive Producer two years ago the Yorkshire based soap has maintained a level of consistently good storylines and allowed the cast and crew to shine to the best of their abilities. It’s not unusual for soaps to have bursts of brilliance only to be followed by a series of mediocre and lackluster storylines until the next big storyline comes along, but I struggle to recall Emmerdale bringing us any mediocre stories and only delivering anything but quality television since Oates took to the hot seat…

This Thursday’s (January 15th) double outing to the Dales stands out as a perfect example of combining flawless scriptwriting and top quality acting to deliver dramatic storylines while keeping the pace and flow of the episode going almost entirely on dialogue, rather than relying on big stunts or fights to keep the viewer engrossed. Many of the scenes in both episodes were stripped back to two character dialogues allowing for a lot of emotion and stand out performances from the involved parties, including Anthony Quinlan and Bill Ward, as Pete opened up to James about the shocking events of the night Emma Barton left her family behind.

Roxy Shahidi, Chris Bisson, Gaynor Faye and Kelli Hollis also turned in memorable scenes as their characters geared up for the impending nuptials of Jai and Megan, with Leyla being left heartbroken by Jai while Megan revealed to Ali the truth about Rachel’s lack of contact since Archie’s return. Two of the soaps finest comedy actors Nicola Wheeler and Nick Miles have been letting their dramatic sides loose recently and they handed in even more poignant scenes in Thursdays double bill as Jimmy and Nicola struggled to come to terms with their pregnancy heartbreak.

Thursday also saw more drama for the Dingle clan, with the wonderful Amy Walsh returning to the soap as Tracy Shankley to cause more trouble for James Hooton’s Sam. While Sam was busy dealing with the reappearance of his most recent ex, his younger sister Belle’s mental illness storyline came to a head when Katie Sugden stumbled upon the teenager mid-argument with her dead friend Gemma (the little cameo from Tendai Rinomhota as the voice of Gemma was a nice touch). Emotional scenes ensued as Zak and Lisa came to Belle’s aid with what can only be described as award winning performances from Eden Taylor-Draper, Steve Halliwell and Jane Cox. Zak’s understanding of Belle’s condition was especially touching…

While Thursday’s episode served as a great testament to the series, there are plenty of other great storylines underway at the moment and in the pipeline. Cain Dingle’s recent medical drama brought Jeff Hordley back to the forefront of the show, but also allowing for some touching scenes from his closest family members wonderfully portrayed by Charley Webb, Emma Atkins, Natalie J. Robb and Lucy Pargeter. Ryan Hawley has managed to make the role of Robert Sugden his own since Robert’s return and his affair with Danny Miller’s Aaron Livesy has been captivating so far, but bound to get even more interesting as Robert prepares to tie the know with fiancée Chrissy.

Gillian Kearney has been an excellent addition to the cast as Emma Barton and her arrival means more screentime for all of the Barton boys, and I’m expecting fireworks from Michael Parr and Joe Gill when their on-screen counterparts Ross and Finn become privvy to the real reason their mother abondoned them. Thomas Atkinson has been another great addition to the show and Lachlan’s growing infatuation with David and Alicia means we’ll be seeing more from the fantastic Matthew Wolfenden and brilliant Natalie Anderson over the coming weeks and months too.

I’d love to continue and try to mention every single cast member, but there’s so many of them it’d probably take a lifetime. The entire cast and crew have been doing phenomenal work though, so kudos to every single one of them. Considering they’re producing more content every week than any of the other soaps, it’s amazing that Emmerdale continues to maintain the perfect mix of comedy and drama six times a week, which I hope will continue to be recognised throughout all of the award ceremonies this year…

Holiday Highlights | Battle of the Soaps

It’s always an exciting time in Soap Land around the festive season as each of the soaps attempt to outdo each other with weddings, deaths, shock returns, love triangles, violence, vengeance and villains…

Now that 2015 is upon us and people return to a regular routine, there’s no better time to look back over the past few weeks of drama filled soap storylines that kept us entertained amongst the madness of Christmas dinners and New Year’s countdowns…

Eastenders – Lives are on the line as a car spirals out of control

The Walford residents over in Albert Square have certainly had more than their fair share of drama over the holidays as the Eastenders gang continue to pull out all of the stops in the lead up to their 30th Anniversary in February…

Christmas week saw the Carter family secrets finally spill out in abundance as Danny Dyer’s on-screen family marked a year on the Square, at the helm of The Queen Vic. All these secrets coming out at once led to Mick losing his cool and thrashing the bar, an outburst both viewers and Dyer himself have been waiting to happen since he joined the show last Christmas.

While the Carter drama still bubbled in the background, New Year’s shifted the focus to the wedding of Ronnie Mitchell and Charlie Cotton as well as Emma Summerhayes finally cracking the Lucy Beale murder case and confronting the killer. Both storylines intertwined when a car accident left the lives of Ronnie and Emma hanging in the balance.  In the end it was Emma who’s soap life was cut short, bringing with her to the grave the identity of Lucy’s killer…

Fair City – Robbie keeps Carol and Yvonne away from Dan

Relishing in the success of its 25th Anniversary storylines in September, Fair City continued one of it’s strongest years yet this festive season with the re-introduction of everyone’s favourite Garda, John Deegan, who’s two year absence (except for maybe a week in 2013 where he briefly just happened to be there again) is never addressed or explained, but with Deegan having his fingers in nearly all the storylines at the moment I can forgive his unexplained disappearances.

Of course Deegan wasn’t the only familiar face to return to Carrigstown recently, with Paul Brennan’s ex-wife and fan favourite Nicola Prendergast knocking up on Paul’s doorstep this Christmas Eve and fitting right back in to the household as if she’d never been gone, resulting in Niamh feeling replaced by Nicola and abondoned by her children which in turn causes problems in Niamh’s relationship with toy boy Michael…  Yeah, that’s going to get very interesting I suspect.

Elsewhere the drama surrounding Yvonne, Carol, Dan and Robbie ends in disaster when Dan ends up critical in hospital after a gas leak at The Station, Mondo O’Connell bids farewell as he leaves for Liverpool to be closer to daughter Juliet, The Fergusons are brought closer together when eldest son Neil goes missing and everyone fears the worst, and Dolores Molloy receives even more bad news when she finds out she may have cancer…

Hollyoaks – Sienna wants a perfect Christmas with Dodger and Nico

As always there was plenty of drama and action in Hollyoaks throughout the festive season, with John Paul McQueen and Ste Hay tying the knot and Dirk Savage and Cindy Cunningham becoming engaged that was all the good news out of the way and an onslaught of twists and turns followed.

Unstable Sienna wanted nothing more than a family Christmas so locked up her twin brother Dodger and their daughter Nico in her old family home. Nico managed to escape only to end up in a coma, while Dodger’s attempt at escaping resulted in a pregnant Sinead O’Connor getting run down and laid up in hospital, only for Dodger to be returned to Sienna’s basement prison once again.

The Roscoe clan took to the forefront for all the New Year’s drama with the return of matriarch Sandy, Jason’s body dismorphia revealed to his mother, Freddie and Lindsay’s affair being exposed to Joe, and tensions over Nancy Osborne between Robbie and his dad Rick resulting in Rick ending up in hospital only to become the first victim of the “Gloved Hand Killer”, who will be taking the lives of more Hollyoaks residents this year. RIP Rick Spencer…

Emmerdale – Finn finds his mum Emma

Emmerdale saw a Christmas Day wedding for Andy Sugden and Katie Addyman and despite some hitches along the way courtesty of Bernice Blackstock and Andy’s brother Robert, the couple ended up tying the knot. Robert Sugden of course has been distracted from making a misery of Andy’s life due to his ongoing affair with Aaron Livesy, which literally led to a roll in the hay between the two on New Year’s Day.

Belle Dingle’s troubles also continued over the past couple of weeks, with “the ghost” of Gemma Andrews refusing to allow the teen to be happy. Belle finally seems to be making progress on New Year’s Day when she opens up to new friend Lachlan White about Gemma speaking to her. Unfortunately, Lachlan has a bad reaction to some legal highs the pair had been partaking in and he ends up hospitalised, with Belle assuming she envoked the wrath of Gemma for opening up to him, escalating Belle’s problem further.

Finn Barton kicked the New Year off to a great start when, with a little help from some friends, he finally managed to track down his estranged mother Emma. It seems like almost a lifetime ago that it was announced Emma Barton would be joining the show and after only one episode I feel the wait was worth it and can’t wait to see how the rest of the Barton’s react to her reappearance.

Ros na Rún – Eoin has been secretly plotting revenge on Tadhg

Over on Ros na Rún we found out that there was more to Eoin Farren than meets the eye. When he first arrived in September the character was shrouded in mystery, although we soon found out he was another illegitimate son of Tadhg Ó Díreáin’s and following that shock announcement Eoin became somewhat of a goody two shoes, until right before Christmas when we found out he was actually up to no good, has been tampering with half brother Jason’s medicine, and that his mother whom he claimed was dead is actually alive and appeared in a scene with Eoin on Christmas Day which had a very Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho feel to it…

While Eoin turning from hero to villain in the space of a phone call was the ultimate highlight of Ros na Rún’s holiday happenings, we also found out that Máire Uí Conghaile has a child from before she was married to Peadar that he knows nothing about and it seems Máire is driven to track her offspring down before they find her. Also, Niamh continues to live dangerously and we even saw her go so fas as to take Tadhg’s hearse without permission… seriously, has she not met him? He would kill her if he found out. And of course the moment we’ve all been waiting for, New Year’s Day gave us the return of devious Dr Cathal Hennessy… Hurray!

Coronation Street – Roy Attacks Gary

Finally on Coronation Street we got more of the most unexpectedly brilliant story of the year with the continuation of The Sally Webster Sofa Saga as Sally urged Tim to get them another sofa for Christmas Day. Tim made a deal with Kevin to get the original sofa back just for Christmas Day, but when it went back to Kevin’s on Boxing Day Sally was left fuming and humiliated in front of the Nazir’s who she had invited around for dinner… Priceless.

Of course it wasn’t all sofa swapping and hilarity on the cobbles this Christmas, as David Platt finally saw red and gave Kylie her marching orders, Steve McDonald’s overspending came back to haunt him when he was found out for taking money from Streetcars resulting in the drivers not getting paid and landing Steve in hot water, and Roy Cropper spent time in a cell over the holidays after brutally attacking Gary Windass with a cricket bat (even though Gary was in the middle of breaking into Roy’s café at the time, but plenty of people seemed to overlook that detail).

 

Which Soap was the most entertaining this Festive Season? You Decide…