Emma Barton (James wife)

[Telly Watcher]

Emmerdale schemer Emma Barton will finally take centre stage with some major storylines this year.

Show bosses have often talked up Emma's villain status, but aside from leaving her husband James for dead following a farming accident last year, her vengeful schemes and feuds have never quite got off the ground.

Keen for that to change, Emmerdale's new producer Iain MacLeod has promised that 2016 will be the year that Emma comes into her own at last.

"We want to use Emma's innate jealousy to drive a story through until the end of 2016," MacLeod told All About Soap. "I think at times we've almost gone there with Emma and then pulled her back - but I love the fact that there's an appetite for her craziness.


© ITV
Moira is worried when Noah goes missing but Emma has him staying in secret at the B&B

"Emma's story is a sad one - she's obviously a damaged individual and all she really wants is for her family to be together.

"I'm keen to explore her messed-up psyche and see how far we can take that."


© ITV
Emma tells Ross to get legal advice over Moses

Former Brookside and Casualty star Gillian Kearney has been appearing on our screens as Emma since January last year.

Viewers recently saw Emma clashing with Charity Dingle when she paid visits to her in prison, so that's clearly one potential source of tension when Charity makes her permanent return to the village next month. We can't wait!

By Daniel Kilkelly, Digital Spy
http://www.digitalspy.com/soaps/emme...her-craziness/

[Telly Watcher]

Emmerdale's Emma Barton will bag herself a shock accomplice when she pretends to have symptoms of motor neurone disease.

Emma will hatch a wicked plan this week when she pretends to be unwell in a desperate bid to stop her eldest son Pete (Anthony Quinlan) from leaving the village.

With Pete planning to move to Aberdeen following his release from prison, Emma will stop at nothing to convince him that she needs him around.

Emma's youngest son Finn (Joe Gill) is more suspicious of her claims, but he may well be silenced when his mum manages to convince someone surprising to verify her story.

Gillian Kearney, who plays Emma, revealed: "Emma just wants to keep Pete close. She knows that Pete will stay because he loves her. Emma does try to tell him later on that she's not really ill, but she just loves the attention so much that she can't help herself. She's basking in it!

"Finn is suspicious at first, but Emma is quite a resourceful woman. She has got some ammunition up her sleeve. She gains the help of another character in the show - against their own will! So she's able to make her story look good to her sons."

Asked how Emma can really keep this up, Kearney continued: "It kind of runs quite smoothly for her. The plan doesn't work out as she expects, but the outcome isn't too bad for her either. The boys are all staying close, so Emma is just going to cruise and see how long she can get away with it for.

"It's also taken care of, because later on there's an alternative explanation of what could be causing her symptoms. So she lets that become the excuse. It's quite complicated, but Emma is able to live under the pretence that the symptoms could be caused by a number of factors - not necessarily MND."

Emma's behaviour may be getting worse by the day, but Kearney added that she doesn't want her to become just another soap villain.

"I'm really enjoying playing that mix of someone who's normal but is a little bit unbalanced," she explained. "I wouldn't like Emma to be thoroughly evil. I like to think of her flaws as exaggerated weaknesses!

"I think the viewers just think I'm a piece of work. That's the expression that gets used quite a lot! I think they kind of like it that Emma is naughty. They know her heart is in the right place, but it's the way she gets there that they don't really like."

By Daniel Kilkelly, Digital Spy
http://www.digitalspy.com/soaps/emme...ock-character/

[Perdita]

Emma Barton's deception will finally be exposed on Emmerdale next week, leaving her future with partner James in serious jeopardy.

Emma (Gillian Kearney) hatched a cunning earlier this month by pretending to be ill in a desperate bid to stop her eldest son Pete from leaving the village.

Emma has been pretending to have symptoms of motor neurone disease and has even roped Doctor Bailey in on her lie. She'll up the ante on her scheme after she suspects James is having an affair with Chas.

In reality, James has been supporting Chas through her pregnancy scare and is secretly planning to propose to Emma. Unaware of this, a distraught Emma will jump to the wrong conclusions after finding Chas's pregnancy test in the bin.

Emma fakes a funny turn
© ITV
Stepping her scheme up a gear, Emma fakes a funny turn in front of James, who is shocked to learn from Pete about her health concerns.

A worried James soon heads to doctor's surgery to get more answers and soon discovers the truth. With Emma's lies now out in the open, she finds herself being alienated by her entire family - who all agree that she should leave the village. Is this it for Emma? Or could James have a change of heart?

Digital Spy

[lizann]

once she discovers that james and moira have got together again i expect her on the warpath and i think holly be her next victim

[lizann]

emma is going to go kathy bates misery on james, keeping him prisoner locked up

[Perdita]

Could Emmerdale's Emma Barton be the unlucky character who's killed off in a top-secret stunt next week?
Emma's shock decision to hold her husband James captive will have massive consequences as they find themselves at the centre of a terrible event alongside several other characters. After such crazy behaviour, surely Emma is an easy target for the soap gods?
Here, Gillian Kearney - who plays Emma - reveals some early gossip on what to expect.
WHAT CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT EMMA'S INVOLVEMENT IN EMMERDALE'S BIG WEEK?
"I can't talk too much about the storyline or what brings us all together, but we all come together in the same place in this catastrophic event that leads to at least one death.
"James and Emma are already having a terrible time at this point. Things have become a little bit violent between them."
WE ALREADY KNOW THAT EMMA HOLD JAMES CAPTIVE, BUT WHY ON EARTH IS SHE WEARING HER OLD WEDDING DRESS IN THESE NEW PICTURES?
"Because Emma tries to remind James about their past. She puts on her original wedding dress from the '80s to remind him of how much she cares for him, but she's drugged him by this time.
"Hearing that James has betrayed her has taken Emma to another place. It's a breakdown, but without her realising that she's having a breakdown. She just thinks that she's keeping hold of him, but she ties him down and drugs him. She tells him that it's for his own good.
"James does twig that Emma is drugging him, so then she knocks him out with his medication and he wakes up in his wedding suit. It's more of a labour of love for Emma. I think she thinks she's smothering him with kindness, really."
HOW DO YOU GET TO THAT CRAZY PLACE IN YOUR MIND?
"Just play it as intensely as I can. I've tried not to play wickedness for wickedness sake, because that's quite boring to play and quite boring to watch.
"Emma is just trying to hang onto what she needs in life and she can't understand why James has fallen out of love with her. She's trying to remember the happy days."
WHAT LENGTHS WOULD EMMA GO TO FOR JAMES? IS IT A 'ME OR NOBODY' SITUATION?
"It feels like that. I feel like she's not giving him any option at all but: 'If we spend some time alone for long enough, then we'll come through this'. That's how I'm playing it. He, unfortunately for Emma, kept the wedding dress, so it's like a red flag for a bull. It's quite pathetic, really. It's quite sad."
THE STORY IS A NOD TO MISERY. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT BEING KATHY BATES?
"I'm not doing the funny voice! I've tried to keep Emma as her own character, because we've been on this journey for two years. She can't just become this other character. I'm trying to keep it to her spirit, even though she loses perspective and she can't see what she's doing is wrong."
WHERE ARE ROSS AND PETE WHEN THE KIDNAP SCENES ARE GOING ON?
"They're oblivious, but Finn turns up. There's been a few phone calls, but Emma is successfully keeping them at bay, explaining that James has broken his leg and he's just been through major surgery. She knows what she wants to do, she just needs time. She thinks it's for the greater good - they'll be back in love again and they can just leave her alone."
HOW HAS IT BEEN FILMING THESE KIDNAP SCENES WITH WILL WARD, WHO PLAYS JAMES?
"It's fantastic! It's intense, obviously, but we get very close and plot these things together. We had similar ideas when we talked about it because we were talking about the pace of it and how we wanted to get there very gradually.
"It starts quite innocently at first with the odd comment: 'Have you taken your painkillers?' It's a normal question - she is a nurse - but then it switches and he starts noticing and he realises what's going on.
"Basically, the cat eats James's food and dies. So there's at least one dead cat, but it's not deliberate. Emma is not cruel to animals, so she's mortified when it dies. But that's a big build up to when James realises. He's feeling really woozy all the time."
DESPITE EVERYTHING, DO YOU STILL HAVE AN EMOTIONAL CONNECTION WITH EMMA?
"I love her, obviously because I play her, but I also feel sorry for her. I always try to see the light over the dark in a sense. I think Emma is insecure and she's fragile - all these things that you can pity. You don't just have to judge her, you think: 'Who is this person? What is her backstory?' You go into all these thoughts.
"Ultimately she's got children who she thinks love her. She's kind of failing at motherhood, but she's trying her best because she wasn't there for 20 years. This, for Emma, is her last shot at becoming happy."
WHAT REACTION DO YOU GET FROM PEOPLE IN THE STREET ABOUT EMMA?
"I don't think many people like her. They like to hate me. They're like: 'Oh you're a right one, aren't you?' I love that. I like the mischief, really. It keeps it more interesting, not playing one thing. It's nice to surprise people, as they never know what to expect."
HOW MUCH PREPARATION DID YOU GET FOR THE MYSTERY STUNT THAT'S COMING UP?
"I sat down with our producer Iain MacLeod in March and he said: 'We always pull Emma back, but we're going to take her to that brink and see how it happens and explore that'. I think that's really good.
"That's what it's always been aiming at, hinting that she's that fragile. So I was ready for that and I knew events were going to unfold, but for the actual stunts it was only quite recently really."
HAVE YOU ENJOYED BEING OUT ON LOCATION TO FILM IT ALL?
"Absolutely. You feel really lucky. It's just been really dramatic. We're filming it on different cameras, so it's not going to look like Emmerdale. It's going to look like a drama you see at 9pm."
IS THIS THE BIGGEST THING YOU’VE EVER BEEN INVOLVED IN?
"I did a stunt for Casualty in Pinewood and that was quite big, where I was in a tank and trapped inside this car. I had a fear of water beforehand and they did very well, so I had divers and the director talking me through it. But it's just so exciting because it's so big budget and it's weird to see."
WE KNOW SOMEONE IS BEING KILLED OFF. IF THIS WAS EMMA'S EXPLOSIVE EXIT, HOW WOULD YOU FEEL TO BE LEAVING THE SHOW?
"I'd be gutted. I've made some amazing friends and the quality is so good. I've had a chance to play such variety and I've been on an interesting journey. It's a wonderful place to work."

[Perdita]

Is Emma Barton about to be arrested for pushing husband James to his death? Next week's episodes of Emmerdale will see the police come calling with fresh news about the shock fall - and it seems that Emma will have to think quickly if she's going to remain at large.
As viewers know, the rest of the Bartons are currently unaware that Emma was responsible for both James's demise and the multi-car pile-up that put several lives in grave danger. But could all that be about to change?
Monday's episode will find a guilt-ridden Emma trying to comfort Ross after his brothers break the news that James has died. But pretty soon, the police have arrived and Emma is left fearing that they're on to her.


Because what the investigating officers have to impart could spell disaster for Emma - a witness has come forward saying that they saw James fall from the bridge and someone standing up there. So how will Emma get out of this one? And what about the evidence that links her to that fateful altercation with James?
Elsewhere, Doug and Sandy will be seen holding crisis talks about Ashley, who is of course also a witness to Emma's crime. The trouble is that he's woken up having forgotten everything - or has he?

Radio Times

[Perdita]

Emma Barton's deadly road crash secret will come under serious threat on Emmerdale next week when Ashley Thomas starts to have some incriminating flashbacks.

The unstable nurse caused carnage last week when she angrily pushed her husband James off a road bridge, sparking a devastating pile-up of cars below.

As James later succumbed to his injuries from the incident, it looked like Emma could be in the clear, especially when Ashley failed to remember how the pile-up started.

Ashley had caught a glimpse of Emma on the bridge but his dementia struggle prevented him from remembering anything of importance when the police later questioned him over what happened.


Next week will explore the devastating aftermath of the crash and there is further horror for Emma when it becomes clear that Ashley is remembering her at the bridge.

Emma's lies come dangerously close to unravelling when she struggles to look shocked or upset when she is informed that James told Moira he loved her.

But after Emma heads to the footbridge to clear her head, it triggers a memory in Ashley when he sees her up there.

However, desperate to keep her secret, a devastating twist sees Emma try to persuade
Ashley that his mind is playing tricks on him.

As Ashley's memory persists, a panicked Emma ups the ante as she deliberately confuses Ashley by
switching between different conversations rapidly. And when a distressed Ashley grows agitated, Emma soothes him before handing him back to Laurel.

But while Emma is satisfied that she is in the clear, she is unaware that Ashley's camera was recording it all in the background. Is Emma about to be caught out? Or will she crack under pressure beforehand?

Emmerdale airs these scenes next week on ITV.


Digital Spy

[tammyy2j]

I hope it is not dragged on for too long

[lizann]

did the police not check the bridge for prints