The risks are so high (Picture: ITV)
An Emmerdale wedding is always surrounded by drama, but for John Sugden (Oliver Farnworth) his upcoming wedding to Aaron Dingle (Danny Miller) comes complete with a massive amount of risk as all of John’s secrets seem about to come tumbling out.
‘There’s so much jeopardy surrounding John the week of the wedding,’ Oliver Farnworth confirmed to us.
‘Aidan’s in his hospital bed. For all intents and purposes John thought he would be there for the rest of his life and he could go and visit him. Now he’s woken up and John’s been confiding in him all the time. How much of it does he know and does he remember? Then obviously all the Nate stuff, which is seismic.’
The ‘Nate stuff,’ as viewers know, is the inconvenient fact that John accidentally killed Nate Robinson (Jurell Carter) while trying to save him at the barn fire last year. He disposed of his body in the lake, where it was glimpsed by Amy Barton (Natalie Ann Jamieson) shortly before she died following the limo crash.
And, right before the wedding, the lake is being dredged.
John’s old lover Aidan has woken up (Picture: ITV)
‘It’s all his own making as well, because he tries to stitch Mack (Lawrence Robb) up and it backfires and the water supply is poisoned and people end up in hospital,’ Oliver explained.
‘He feels terrible about that, but when there’s the revelation that the whole things has got to be drained and dredged, it’s the worst thing that could happen – when he’s meant to be getting married!’
There’s a week of special episodes leading up to the wedding, and each of them starts with John having a nightmare and seeing the possible ways his fate could play out. When Oliver first read the scripts he was excited by the change in format and praised Emmerdale for being willing to take those kinds of stylistic risks.
‘Each episode has a different style with potential different outcomes to the wedding,’ he told us. ‘A lot of those are in John’s mind until we get to the real event. I think people will watch on the first day and then, when the pattern is set, they’ll get used to the format of it.
Aaron doesn’t know the complete truth about John (Picture: ITV)
John killed Nate Robinson last year (Picture: ITV)
‘I think Emmerdale is being quite brave at the moment, with a lot of flashbacks and things like that. Audiences are more and more used to seeing devices like that on their screens.’
Viewers recently saw the scene in which John was revealed at Nate’s killer. Oliver explained this was filmed soon after he arrived in the Dales and it’s a secret he’s had to keep ever since.
‘We filmed it all in situ at the barn fire, so I’ve known about that and it’s just a case of when do you release that to the audience. I think the fact that the audience know before anyone else in the village is very cool as well, because they go on that journey with John as opposed to someone in the village finding out and that’s when the audience find out. It’s more interesting and there’s a lot of devices being used like that.’
With the discovery of Nate’s body imminent, and Aidan waking up to possibly reveal secrets from John’s army past, what’s stopping John from getting in his van and leaving the village forever?
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‘He really loves Aaron,’ Oliver confirmed. ‘I think if he didn’t love Aaron so much he’d probably be out of there.
‘I think he’s never been in a relationship with someone so honest and he feels comfortable revealing things about himself in that relationship and it’s quite refreshing for him.
‘He just wants to get down the aisle as quickly as possible and get off on honeymoon. He could literally up and leave it all behind him. But there’s also the family as well. He’s never had that. Victoria (Isabel Hodgins), Harry – there’s a lot in the village for him.’
But will there still be anything for him in the village when the truth finally comes out?
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