Some are in. Some are out. Thankfully no soap stars have been shaking it all about recently, but it’s probably just a matter of time.
Yes, it’s all go in Soapland. Your intrepid TV Today correspondent has just about recovered from Monday evening’s Inside Soap Awards, and much fun was had by all.
The best news from the night was the win for Coronation Street in the Best Soap award, a nut its been trying to crack at this bash for a few years. Well-deserved, I feel, and although the Enders is going through a decent patch at the moment, perhaps the power of the Walford fans over the voting process is starting to diminish.
Amongst the revellers was the lovely Gemma Bissix, having recently departed the environs of Hollyoaks where she has had a storming year playing arch soap bitch Clare Cunningham. However, she didn’t look too worried about work prospects, with it being revealed that the actress would be returning to her first soap home in Walford. Bissix will arrive back in Albert Square after a ten-year absence from the role of Clare Bates, last seen departing the show for a new life in Scotland with step dad Nigel. With Paul Bradley now in Holby City, it seems there might be some doubt over Nigel whereabouts and why Clare is being cagey on the subject. Gemma Bissix has proved her soap acting chops in Hollyoaks, and I look forward to seeing her back in EastEnders.
But other soap actresses appear be enduring a rather more turbulent time at the hands of the soaps, with The Sun spilling the beans this morning on Linda Lusardi quitting Emmerdale before the end of the year. The former Page 3 stunner (I got that from my cliché drawer) appears to have got into a row over money and will depart after less than a year. I can’t say I’m as upset over this as I was when Patsy Kensit left the soap, and one gets the impression that Emmerdale bosses were hoping for glam lightning to strike twice by hiring Lusardi. Let’s face it, though, our Linda is clearly more talented in other areas…
But the most distressing news from the land of soap is the very, very sad news that soap legend (she really is you know) Kate Ritchie is to leave Home and Away at the end of the 2007 season. What?! Say it ain’t so! We have literally seen Ritchie grow up in the Aussie soap as Sally Fletcher and she has become true soap royalty.
“I was eight years old when I got the part of Sally, and I’m now a 29-year-old woman who just really needs to go out there and do something different.”
she said earlier today, and you can’t argue with that, can you? Ritchie’s departure will leave Ray Meagher, aka Alf Stewart, as the sole original cast member left on the show. Does that make him the Ian Beale of Home and Away?
Whatever Kate Ritchie finds herself doing in the future, TV Today wishes her the very best of luck. Sally Fletcher, you will be missed.
