Soap heroines have been hitting the bottle of late, with Moira on Emmerdale and Linda on EastEnders both regularly downing overflowing glasses of wine and passing out on kerbs or in ditches. It’s been like Shane Meadows’s The Virtues with added lipstick and heels. And I keep picturing a WhatsApp group where they tip each other off about the latest supermarket booze deals.

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Now, though, Moira tells Cain that she’s come to say goodbye to him because she’s going to stay with Nana Barton for a while. It’s the best place for her. Despite having never been seen on screen, a trip to see Nana Barton is the Emmerdale equivalent of a trip to the Betty Ford clinic. I have a mental image of her as this elderly, fluffy-haired wise counsellor, though with a core of steel. After all, she never bothered to attend the funerals of both her sons, two of her grandchildren and her daughter-in-law. Talk about tough love.

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As soon as it was announced that an outdoor pursuits centre would be opening in the village, I started gleefully envisaging scenes of disaster. The bridge of an aerial walkway snapping beneath Nate’s feet. Or a climbing wall collapsing onto all the teen characters. But what I didn’t predict was all these business-blah tensions behind the scenes.

For instance, I’ve lost count of the scenes we’ve had featuring Kim Tate barking, “Do I have to come down there and sort this myself?” into a telephone before slamming down the receiver and rolling her eyes. And Thursday’s double bill sees the pressure becoming too much for an already stressed out Jai Sharma, who realises that he needs to pull an all-nighter in the office to meet a pressing deadline. Hence him putting in an order for a “special” pizza – one that comes complete with a bag of cocaine.

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Will Jai succumb to temptation? (It’s a soap, so what do you reckon?)

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