What an excellent bit of Boxing Day entertainment this was! Connie Fisher’s portrayal of the church mouse and light fingered Gemma Perkins was brilliant and showed what a truly versatile and talented actor she is. I loved Joe Absolom in the role of stuttering and shy would be suitor Marcus too.
I have to say, the Yuletide soap offerings this year were, well, mediocre… they went with not so much a bang as a fizzle. I suppose it’s because over the years, I’ve come to expect massive storylines so this year’s were a bit of a let down I thought, with the possible exception of Eastenders…
Let’s start with Emmerdale; Victoria’s falling through the ice was pretty good; it was tense stuff as she flailed around under the ice, and then when Shane’s hand started drifting upwards, well, it was quite spooky and grim… but that was it really wasn’t it? I didn’t feel the love with the church sit in at all and as Christmas storylines go, it was more than a little tame I thought. And where did all the snow go?? The entire village was covered on Christmas day but by Boxing day, it was all gone!
Coronation Street battleaxe Blanche Hunt has been saved from the chop this week.
Writers on the ITV1 soap had planned for Blanche to exit early next year through illness, but after a top level meeting reconsidered after deciding that the character still had lots to give.
An insider on the ITV1 soap told The Sun: “It has been seriously considered and discussed at our latest forward planning meeting that the character of Blanche should be killed off.
Well, ok, this episode wasn’t the best ever but nonetheless, it was still pretty funny. It’s had a pretty bad slating all in all which I personally think is harsh; there were some very good moments in it such as David Snr describing how Jocelyn gagged when removing the excrement from his exhaust pipe and Dave using a variety of power tools on the turkey.
On Tuesday 30th it’s a one hour episode which sees Victoria still angry with Diane for calling the psychiatrist but Daz manages to coax her outside when she locks herself away. Daz reaffirms his belief in Victoria’s story about the body in the lake and they head off to investigate.
Daz pokes around the water with a stick and makes a joke of it, upsetting Victoria in the process. However, as they turn to leave, Daz hears the unmistakable sound of disturbed water and whirls round. The youngsters are horrified to see a body rise to the surface. Victoria’s in pieces as she’s taken back to the village and interviewed by police officers.
Don’t read any further if you don’t want to know what’s happening in the Street in January!
Towards the middle of the month, Tony, when confronted by Maria, confesses that he strangled Jed with Carla’s negligee. A horrified Maria eventually runs out of the factory and tells anyone who’ll listen what happened to Jed, but they all just become more convinced that Maria’s lost her marbles.
One year on from the start of Big Food Fight season, Channel 4’s latest recruit, Heston Blumenthal joins the line-up in January for a follow-up, the Great British Food Fight, which aims to celebrate the best of British food and explore issues around food production.
Launching on 19th January, chef Heston Blumenthal, who has three Michelin stars, sets out to transform the menu of the troubled Little Chef chain of roadside restaurants in Big Chef, Little Chef.
Classic medical drama series ER, from the pen of the late Michael Crichton, returns to More4 for its 15th - and final – season in January.
As the new series opens Abby awakes following the ambulance explosion and quickly rushes to check on the other victims despite her injuries. A mother and daughter are also rushed into the ER from the scene but Abby misdiagnoses the case. Meanwhile, Morris and Neela struggle to keep up with the number of casualties following the explosion.
Only five days left to the new Doctor Who special, and until Christmas too of course! We have some FAB pictures from the show just to get you in the mood. Enjoy!
Here come the cybermen!!!
It’s Christmas Eve and the Wests join the Shipmans for one of Mick’s famous turkey dinners, as the award-winning Gavin & Stacey comes to BBC One for a special festive episode.
Smithy can’t wait to spend his first Christmas with baby Neil, but doesn’t count on Dave Coaches tagging along and playing happy families with Nessa. Jason and Bryn, meanwhile, have a heart-to-heart about “that” fishing trip and Gavin and Stacey’s revelation to Pam and Smithy doesn’t quite turn out to be the Christmas present they were expecting.
“Dexter” actress Lauren Velez (aka Lt. Maria Laguerta) is said to be all set for a number of guest appearances on US comedy, “Ugly Betty.”
The Hollywood Reporter says that Lauren will play Elena, a nurse that enters the lives of the Suarez family.
Velez has also starred in HBO’s “Oz” and Fox’s “New York Undercover.”
As always, Christmas is a busy time in soap land with murders, explosions, kidnappings and general misery served alongside turkey and Christmas pud, so let’s take a look at what Eastenders have in store for us over Christmas.
Christmas Eve 8pm
Roxy and Sean plan to go shopping but before they leave, Peggy asks them to be back in time to say hello to Aunt Sal. When the loved-up pair leave, Archie opens a letter from an estate agent in Dagenham about the house Sean has rented for them. At that moment, Suzy appears wanting to know when Archie’s going to come through with his end of the deal. Archie assures her that he’ll sort it but Suzy’s becoming impatient. As Archie and Peggy discuss Roxy and Sean’s plan to leave Walford, Aunt Sal arrives.
Victoria Sugden has a big scare this week as a Christmas walk turns into a dip in an icy lake.
Victoria is walking with Daz Eden, Jake Doland, Aaron Livesy and Scarlett Nicholls when she falls through the ice and into the lake. Her friends watch as she disappears under the ice and things just get worse as she grabs onto a hand only to discover it is attached to a dead body.
Thankfully Daz manages to save Vic but when she comes around in hospital she frantically tries to convince people that there is a body in the water.
A show insider told The Daily Star:
It’s been puzzling me for ages where I’ve seen relatively new soap additions Jed Stone (Coronation Street) and Archie Mitchell (Eastenders), then, after a bit of detective work, I remembered!
Jed Stone is played by Kenneth Cope who also played Marty Hopkirk in Randall and Hopkirk Deceased; he was the deceased half of the investigative duo who could only be seen and heard by his partner, Jeff Randall.
In case you’re not old enough to remember the show, it was on TV in the sixties and centred around Jeff and Marty, but Marty was murdered in the very first episode and was thereafter seen as a ghost, complete with white suit. There was a total of 26 episodes made and in 2000, Bob Mortimer and Vic Reeves resurrected the show and remade it.
Here’s a clip from the show…
He also had a starring role in a few Carry On films, such as Carry On At Your Convenience. Here he is in Carry On Matron…
He was also in Coronation Street in the sixties when he played a young Jed who was also known as Sunny Jim. He lodged with cantankerous Minnie Caldwell at number 5 and his ‘trademark’ was that he always wore a cap, something that today’s Street writers have continued.
So, on to Archie Mitchell who’s played by Larry Lamb. He’s been in lots of dramas but what I remember his for is his role in Buster. The blockbuster film was the story of the Great Train robbery in which Larry played crook Bruce Reynolds.
Bruce was an accomplished housebreaker and jewel thief and he formed the ‘team’ that robbed the Royal Mail train with his associates Buster Edwards, Gordon Goody and Roy James amongst others.
The robbery remained the most significant heist in British criminal history until the Brinks Mat robbery in 1983. During the Great Train Robbery, the real train driver, Jack Mills, was clubbed on the head with an iron bar and died seven years later of leukemia.
Reynolds went on the run in the aftermath of the Great Train robbery, living under various aliases abroad. He spent considerable time in South America before returning to Britain, where he was tried and sentenced to ten years. Larry played the role of the hard man crook really well.
You can see him in action here but unfortunately, the dialogue has been dubbed over. Still, you can see the he was a pretty hot bloke in his day!
Is there anyone you just can’t place the face to? Let us know and we’ll see if we can unearth where you’ve seen them before.
As always, Christmas is a busy time in soap land with murders, explosions, kidnappings and general misery served alongside turkey and Christmas pud, so let’s take a look at what Coronation Street has in store for us over Christmas.
Christmas Eve, 7.30pm
It’s Christmas Eve on Coronation Street and everyone is in high spirits. The factory girls are in party mood so Carla tells them to go home and come back in their glad rags for the Underworld Christmas party. Tony stays to get the party ready and finish off some last-minute wrapping but he’s surprised by a visit from a tipsy Jed demanding yet more cash in return for his silence.
Angered by the pensioner’s demands, Tony snaps and using the negligee he’s bought for Carla, he throttles him. As he stands over a motionless Jed on the floor of the factory, he panics realising that Carla and the factory girls will be on their way back at any time.
Spotting an empty storage hamper, he crams Jed’s lifeless body inside just in time. The next few hours are a nightmare for Tony as the drunken factory girls conga and dance around the hamper unaware of its grizly secret. Will Tony’s latest evil deed be discovered?
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