Going live...

EASTENDERS has done it. So has Coronation Street with that tram crashing off the viaduct. Now it’s the turn of Emmerdale to mark a significant anniversary – the soap’s 40th – with a live edition in a week of episodes promising two weddings, two births and a death.

Tonight’s hour-long episode is not only live, but is being shot on location on the village set “An hour one October evening in a field on a hill in Yorkshire – what could possibly go wrong? As our director will tell you, I think it will pretty much shoot itself,” says producer Stuart Blackburn, shortly to move to Weatherfield as the Street’s new producer.

The actors will not only have to remember their lines, change costumes and move from set to set, but all the while they’ll be at the mercy of the weather.

Let’s hope brollies won’t be needed.

The Emmerdale team has done its best not to give away exactly what’s going to happen and who’ll die. “I think as a viewer of soaps and drama, I hate it when I stumble across a spoiler and realise what’s going on,” says Blackburn.

“With this episode, if we can have one surprise, just once a decade, that would be fantastic. That’s why I’m not going to say too much, but I think it will move people, it will change our characters’ lives for a long, long time and drive the show onwith a story for the coming months.

That’s all I really want to say.”

Some hope with the tabloids and soap magazines vying for an exclusive. My money is on one of the older actors – Alan Turner or Betty – being put out to pasture.

Surely they wouldn’t kill off little Sarah, who’s battling for her life with a rare disease.

Then again Carl King, who’s killed his father and got away with it, is another prime contender. I did ask actor Tom Lister if he died in tonight’s episode when he visited Sunderland Empire to, launch his panto appearance as Captain Hook in Peter Pan this Christmas, but he declined to answer.

AT least we know who’s getting married – Katie and Declan, and Chas and Dan. There are complications on both sides. Declan’s half-sister Megan has found out he’s swindling her out of the profits of the recent music festival they promoted. And Chas has promised to run away with Carl, the man she jilted at the altar last year.

New arrivals will come courtesy of Gennie and Debbie, who’ve chosen the 40th anniversary week to go into labour.

It’s a big responsibility for all the actors involved, but how does Lucy Pargeter, who plays Chas, feel about her central role in the live episode? “There are two answers for that, there’s the press answer and the real answer,” she says.

“I’ll give the press answer, which is it’s exciting, it’s nerve-wracking, it’s an honour, and there’s quite a lot of pressure.

“It’s something we’ve never done before – speaking on behalf of the cast, we’ve never done a live episode before – but the show as a whole is such a massive machine that we are really the last link.

“So I think as long as we say our words right, then we’re just putting icing on the massive machine. But I’m bricking it.”

One of them, Sian Reese-Williams, better known to soap fans as mum-to-be Gennie, is rather looking forward to it.

“I really wanted to be part of the live episode because I miss being on stage a lot, and I thought that maybe I’d have one line and be thankful for it, but I’m pleased that we’ve got a big chunk to do, and a nice one too – Gennie and Nikhil are like the light relief to the drama,” she says.

Fortunately, Blackburn is convinced the cast are up to the job. “There are many, many things that are giving me sleepless nights at the moment, but absolutely, genuinely, the cast aren’t one of them. I have complete and utter faith in the lot of them.”