Question time!
THE BIG SOAP QUIZ: CORONATION STREET vs EMMERDALE
FORGET the British Soap Awards and the NTAS – this is the biggest prize in Soapland.
Or so we’re supposed to believe, as a team from each of ITV’S continuing dramas go head to head in what’s basically, for them, a kind of big pub quiz about their day jobs. They’re not playing for gongs but for honour, and for Emmerdale it’s a chance to even up the two-one lead Corrie currently hold.
Representing the Dales are Marlon, Vanessa, Tracy and Paddy – aka actors Mark Charnock, Michelle Hardwick, Amy Walsh and Dominic Brunt.
And stepping up for the Street are David, Shona, Rana and Brian – the alter egos of Jack P Shepherd, Julia Goulding, Bhavna Limbachia and Peter Gunn.
The ever-smiley purveyor of cheesy gags Stephen Mulhern is in the quizmaster’s chair, and rounds include guess the character from their wedding dress, identify who went on Stars In Their Eyes from some dodgy warbling, pick out who’s been arrested and guess how somebody died.
There’s also some blindfolded feeling of a mystery guest – cue hilarity from the audience – and a load of life-sized cardboard cutouts of the Dingle family... which we like to think some superfans retrieved from the bins round the back of ITV and have had good use out of ever since.
Marlon and Paddy show why they’re one of the funniest double acts in soap, but it’s relative newcomer Julia (Shona Ramsey) who’s the surprise package with her encyclopaedic knowledge.