Emmerdale star Jonny McPherson explains Liam and Wendy's affair
Emmerdale spoilers follow.
Emmerdale kicks off a surprising new storyline for Liam Cavanagh next week as he starts a secret affair with Wendy Posner.
The pair are brought together by a shared passion for murder mystery stories over the next few days, but their friendly meetings soon lead to more.
Liam is newly-single following his split from his wife Leyla at the end of last year. Wendy, meanwhile, is in a serious relationship with Bob Hope.
Jonny McPherson, who plays Liam, recently caught up with us for a chat about what's to come.
What draws Liam and Wendy together?
"Liam, unbeknown to anyone, is submitting short detective stories at the moment. He's had a bit of a penchant for those since his student days. He's now divorced and he's on his own, so he doesn't have much else to do.
"Liam is submitting these short stories to Murder Most Murky, a bi-annual murder mystery publication. Wendy finds one of the stories in the surgery and confronts him about it."
What happens next?
"Wendy says the story is great, but gives Liam ideas for amendments – some of which are a bit saucy!
"So they're brought together because Liam and Wendy have this mutual love of storytelling. But also, when Wendy starts talking about some racy stuff, it gets Liam a bit fired up and it ignites something."
Liam uses a pen name to write his stories, doesn't he?
"Yes, he's using the name Anna Le Monde. It comes from Leanna, his daughter who was killed in 2021. The reference to Le Monde is because Leanna was his world."
We see Liam and Wendy kiss while attending an online murder mystery convention. Do they end up sleeping together?
"Yes – we cut to the next morning in the following episode. We see that they've spent the night in the doctors surgery, where there's a surgical bed!
"There's a champagne bottle, Wendy is on the surgical bed and everyone's looking a bit worse for wear…"
Is Wendy a better match for Liam than Leyla was?
"They've definitely got more in the way of shared interests. Leyla was all about weddings and nails. Liam loves Wendy and he likes that she's so interested in the short stories.
"Liam has had a tough time of it, for a really long stretch. It's been nice for him to suddenly have the pleasure of writing these stories.
"It's also refreshing that he can now have somebody to be open with about the stories, after previously keeping it a secret. It's nice just to collaborate on this hobby that Liam gets so much pleasure from. He also loves the fancy dress when they attend the convention together."
Have you enjoyed getting a fun story after so much heartbreak for Liam?
"Absolutely. For me, with the whole Leanna story, it felt like coming home from a funeral every single day when I was finishing work.
"When you have a story like that, you're in for ten hours a day feeling incredibly sad. I must have got through about 10 tearsticks in the course of about three months – constantly stabbing your face!
"The thing is, if you're going to explore a story like that properly, you have to go through it. Your body becomes tense. You have to short cut your brain into actually feeling like you're going through it. There's no way around it. People sometimes say they don't take the stories home with them, but you do."
Do you share Liam's passion for creative writing?
"I wanted to do creative writing when I was about 18. I got an old-fashioned typewriter and I used to do an hour's worth of writing every single morning for about a year. I was obsessed with novels and really, really wanted to get into it.
"My best mate from drama school has recently become a screenwriter. He's done amazing and we're so pleased for him. But he's got a peculiar method and he writes on his phone. His actual daily existence, which I discovered over the course of his last year, is that he spends eight hours a day writing on it.
"Being in your own head for eight hours – I couldn't do that!"
Emmerdale airs on weeknights at 7.30pm on ITV1, and streams on ITVX.
Read more Emmerdale spoilers on our dedicated homepage
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