As we reported yesterday, the Dallas reboot debuts on Channel 5 on September 5th, and ahead of it, the show’s senior stars have been talking to the media about the highly anticipated follow up to the eighties hit soap.

And among them is of course Patrick Duffy, who’s reprising his role as Bobby Ewing. As viewers of the original show will recall, Bobby was always the nice guy sidekick to Larry Hagman’s villainous character, JR, who is of course Bobby’s brother.

However, in what Patrick described as “art imitating life”, one of his new plotlines is that Bobby’s diagnosed with cancer, which was unpleasantly ironic because of course during filming for the show’s first season, Larry Hagman was, in real life, battling the disease…

Speaking to The Sun’s TV Biz, Patrick explained, “It was so, so hard to film those scenes. All of a sudden art imitates life, just in reverse, and it was hard.

“I was already in Dallas ready to go to work. And Larry called, maybe four days before he was supposed to come on set, and told me he had throat cancer.

“I was like, ‘What? No!’ When it’s your best friend going through it, it’s really difficult to watch.

“He was having chemotherapy and radiation the whole time he was working. And I was doing scenes where I had cancer.

“It’s incredible how he did it.

“Thankfully, he has now been given a clean bill of health and is coming back for season two.”

Patrick also revealed that he had a cancer scare of his own a few years ago.

He said, “I had a lump on my face and had a big cancer thing removed.”

But, thankfully, he’s now fully recovered, and of returning to play Bobby again, he said, “It was so easy coming back to play Bobby again.

“After 20 years, stepping on set was like I had been on vacation and I was heading back to work.

“It was nice. I like playing the good guy.”

As mentioned, the new Dallas starts on Channel 5 on September 5. Will you be watching?

In the meantime, here’s the show’s extended trailer…