Buzzin Soap Stars

Members from the casts of Emmerdale and Coronation Street will face each other in a charity football match this weekend, February 19th, to compete for the Gavin Blyth Memorial Cup, in memory of their colleague and TV producer Gavin, who died from cancer in November aged 41.

Gavin spent eight years working on the two soaps, starting at Emmerdale in 2002 as the shows senior publicist before switching to Coronation Street in 2005 where he progressed to assistant producer. Gavin returned to Emmerdale in 2009 as Series Producer, creating exciting new characters and storylines that resulted in a massive upsurge in viewers.

Danny Miller (Aaron Livesy) will captain the Emmerdale team, he says of Gavin;

“Gavin Blyth was an inspirational and passionate producer. But not only that, he was a fantastic man, father, mentor, and friend who was like a brother to me and so many others. He’s left a giant hole at Emmerdale so we want to remember Gavin by having a match against the lads from Coronation Street which should be a great day celebrating his life, and raising money for Macmillan Cancer Support. The ground can hold 3,000 people and we want every seat filled to cheer us on, and to help a fantastic charity that does so much to help people affected by cancer. Naturally, Emmerdale is going to win!”

Jamie Strachan, Fundraising Manager for Macmillan in Leeds said: “Emmerdale has been a fantastic Macmillan supporter for a number of years, but Danny has done a superb job organising this match in memory of Gavin. He meant so much to so many and it’s a way for cast and crew of Emmerdale and Coronation Street to honour his memory whilst raising money for Macmillan to ensure we can help more people living with or affected by cancer.”

The Gavin Blyth Memorial Cup charity football match kicks off at 1pm at the Manchester Regional Sprorts Arena on Saturday February 19th.

Tickets, payable at the gate, are priced £8 for adults and £4 for children or a family ticket (two adults and two children) available for £20 with all proceeds going to Macmillan. Turnstiles will open at 12noon ahead of a 1pm kick off. Fans will have the opportunity to get autographs and photographs with their favourite cast members after the game.

The teams:

Emmerdale
Danny Miller (Captain) – Aaron Livesy
Lyndon Ogbourne – Nathan Wylde
Adam Thomas – Adam Barton
James Thornton – John Barton
James Sutton – Ryan Lamb
James Hooton – Sam Dingle
Kelvin Fletcher – Andy Sugden
Tony Audenshaw – Bob Hope
Marc Silcock – Jackson Walsh
Mark Charnock – Marlon Dingle
Tom Lister – Carl King
Dominic Brunt – Paddy Kirk
Jeff Hordley – Cain Dingle

Coronation Street
Ryan Thomas (Captain) – Jason Grimshaw
Jack P Shepherd – David Platt
Alan Halsall – Tyrone Dobbs
Michael le Vell – Kevin Webster
Sam Aston – Chesney Battersby-Brown
Steven Arnold – Ashley Peacock
Andrew Whyment – Kirk Sutherland
Ben Price – Nick Tilsley
Graeme Hawley – John Stape

Venue:
The Manchester Regional Sports Arena,
Rowsley Street,
Manchester,
M11 3FF
About Macmillan Cancer Support
Macmillan Cancer Support improves the lives of people affected by cancer, providing practical, medical, emotional and financial support. Working alongside people affected by cancer, Macmillan works to improve cancer care. One in three of us will get cancer. Two million of us are living with it. If you are affected by cancer Macmillan can help.

Visit the Macmillan site for more information.

rosie webster

It always seem a little strange to me how the top UK soaps seem to mirror their rivals storylines from time to time and although this one  coming up on Coronation Street on Friday is very different to the current Eastenders storyline, it does still involve a mix up with babies.

Rosie Webster moved out of the family house in December to live with boyfriend Jason Grimshaw because she couldn’t stand being in the same house as her father and his baby by Molly Dobbs.

However, according to the Sun’s Buzz magazine Rosie Webster suddenly takes a shine to her dad’s love child, her half brother, recently born babyJack, after being put forward for a Mother and baby photo shoot.

Unsuspecting Dad, Kevin Webster believes that his eldest daughter has come round to the fact that she has a little brother, having told him that she would like to spend more time with the little chap.

The smile is soon wiped off his face and his grimace returns when Rosie arrives back from the photo shoot with the wrong baby!

kim thomson as faye lamb

Kim Thomson says she will leave the cast of Emmerdale when her contract expires shortly, claiming that she has grown tired of living so far away from her home in London.

The actress who plays Faye Lamb in the Yorkshire Dales based soap says that she will be sad to leave Emmerdale after two years working with the cast and crew, but misses her family and friends in London and will be glad to settle back into a normal life there.

Since first appearing on the show in early 2009 Thomson spends all week in Yorkshire and with travelling to and fro between the set and her home at weekends she barely manages to get 24 hours a week to spend in London.

While she is reluctant to give any details about her on screen exit from the soap, Thomson told Take it Easy magazine that in traditional Emmerdale style she expects it will be dramatic.

She added that she had enjoyed her time on Emmerdale, “They’re a lovely crowd, great crew and actors and it’s been a pleasure working with them.”

In her role as Faye Lamb she has also enjoyed being able to ‘go around slapping other women’ and says “There was a lot of slapping. I’ve enjoyed being slappee and slapper!”

Having married in hospital when it appeared that Peter Barlow was on his death bed, the church blessing of Leanne and Peter Barlow now looks set to spring some surprises in Coronation Street.

Arriving at the church  looking stunning in an ivory dress Leanne appears totally unaware of what the day holds in store for her.

It seems that Peter has found out about Leanne’s affair with Nick Tilsley and has arranged the blessing simply to humiliate his new wife.

There are further unconfirmed rumours that the day ends with Peter Barlow taking his revenge on Nick Tilsley with an iron bar, so it sounds like just another day on this most famous of Street’s!

steve arnold as ashley peacock

Poor old Steven Arnold was voted off this weeks Dancing on Ice series following one of the worst routines ever, in which the former Coronation Street actor scored just seven points out of a possible 30.

Arnold’s alter ego Ashley Peacock was recently written out of the soap in recent weeks, having been killed in the infamous tram crash and after watching the actor’s attempts at dancing on ice, you immediately got the feeling that his skating career was already on a slippery slope, another crash waiting to happen.

Unlike the recent X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing results where a wierd strategy employed by voters meant that the weakest competitors stayed in the show, I can only imagine for the laugh factor, there was no such safety net for Arnold and he was quite rightly voted off the show.

Arnold found himself among the two contestants with the lowest votes in the final part of Sunday’s show alongside Dominic Cork, but while Cork managed to pull something out of the bag with his routine, Arnold had nothing more to offer and looked totally ill at ease with the whole thing.

I can only assume that he will be relieved not to have to return to the show for yet another week of humiliation.