Emmerdale’s Bob Hope (Tony Audenshaw) is quite partial to a strong, feisty woman. Only recently we saw him rekindling his fondness for Bernice Blackstock (Samantha Giles) when she made a flying visit to the village and they ended up ruffling the sheets in Dame Judi Dench during a night of passion at the B&B.
Bob has been married six times, including twice to Viv Windsor (Deena Payne), the mother of his twins Cathy and Heath (Gabrielle and Sebastian Dowling).
His most recent wife was Brenda Walker (Lesley Dunlop), during which marriage he also had an affair with Laurel Thomas (Charlotte Bellamy). Most recently Bob was living with nurse Wendy Posner (Susan Cookson).
So Bob has had more than his fair share of romantic partners, but in upcoming episodes he sets his sights on a recent arrival in the village – Celia Daniels (Jaye Griffiths).
Now that really could be playing with fire.
We first saw Celia in a nasty incident where Paddy (Dominic Brunt) was bitten by one of her dogs. She subsequently calmly announced that the dog had been dealt with.
Since then Celia, who farms land next to Moira (Natalie J Robb)’s, has tried to get Moira involved in a scheme that turned out to be part of a plan by Kim Tate (Claire King) and Joe Tate (Ned Porteous) to bankrupt Moira and get her land. Then Celia turned the tables on Joe and is now apparently friends with Moira and is working with her.
However, this seems to involve trying to get Moira to agree to various dodgy deals against her better judgement.
Jaye Griffiths warned us that her character is certainly not to be trusted.
‘Everything that comes out of her mouth may be, but probably isn’t, the truth,’ she teased. ‘I don’t mean she’s lying. That’s what’s so clever about Celia. She doesn’t tell lies, she says what will best suit the endgame. For her, that’s a distinction. For the rest of the world, we call it lying.’What Jaye loves about playing Celia is how single-minded she is.
‘To begin the day that you simply don’t care – you don’t care what anyone thinks and you don’t care about their feelings.
Almost needless to say, his attempt doesn’t go well. Celia can certainly be charming, but only when it’s to get something she wants. And unfortunately poor Bob doesn’t seem to be something Celia wants.
The sheets of Dame Judi Dench would seem to be safe for now.
