DEBBIE’S BACK WITH A BANG!

Charley Webb on her character’s dramatic return to Emmerdale – trying to rescue her children from kidnappers

Debbie Dingle returns to the Dales in typically explosive fashion this week – desperate for money to pay off gangsters who’ve kidnapped her children. The businesswoman, who’s been away for a year, living in France, wants her family to help her find the ransom money to get young Jack and Sarah back unharmed.

‘Of course, Debbie wouldn’t be Debbie if she didn’t come back with a bang,’ says Charley Webb, who plays her and has actually been on maternity leave. ‘All we know at first is she’s up to her neck in trouble with the gangsters, and it’s a race against time to rescue the kids. She’s straight on to the Dingles and they all collude to help her out of this latest scrape. It will be the Dingles at their finest!’

The reason Debbie has got herself into such trouble isn’t revealed at first but Charley says her character needs help with something traumatic that ‘will emotionally affect all the Dingles, if not the whole village’.

Debbie left Emmerdale on New Year’s Day last year after finding out that her boyfriend Ross Barton had shot Robert Sugden. But while she’s often been portrayed as hard-nosed in the past, her new storyline will show her in a different light.

‘We’ll see Debbie being fixed on doing the right thing and trying to keep the family together, and I think there will be a lot of emotion to play out that will change her in a lot of ways,’ says Charley, who’s played Debbie since 2002. ‘We’ll see a softer side to her, and I’m excited to play that. Who knows how the audience will feel about it; I’m sure some people will want the old Debbie back, but some will like the new Debbie.’

With Debbie’s focus solely on the

kidnap issue at first, fans will have to wait to see whether she gets back with Ross. ‘Even though he’d often lie to her, the majority of viewers I spoke to liked them being together,’ says Charley, 28. ‘He’ll tell her he still loves her and wants them to get back together but she says no because she can’t have any other added stress right now.’

Charley’s life is thankfully far less turbulent than Debbie’s, having spent 12 months off with new baby Bowie and his six-year-old brother Buster. ‘It was great to be a full-time mum for a year because I’ve never done that,’ says Charley, whose partner is fellow

Emmerdale star Matthew Wolfenden, who plays David Metcalfe. ‘But I was more than delighted to return to Emmerdale. I love it here and there’s always something going on with Debbie, which is what I really enjoy. She’s always in the middle of great stories, and this is no exception.

‘Because I’ve been so busy on set straight away, I’ve settled really well,’ she adds. ‘It was always going to be difficult leaving the kids after being with them full-time for a year, but it’s not been horrendous and I’m loving being back at work.’