AN Emmerdale resident broke down in tears as they had to reveal Zak Dingle’s heartbreaking death in tonight’s episode.

Actor Steve Halliwell previously passed away at the age of 77 in December 2023 after a period of ill health.

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On tonight’s edition of Emmerdale, his on-screen alter ego died off-screen, which left fans devastated.

It was up to Moira (Natalie J Robb) to break the news after she suffered a horrific burn that morning.

She was attempting to cook Matty (Ash Palmisciano) a hearty breakfast before she suffered from a small seizure.

Her wrist was caught on the side of the pan after her son warned her against potentially strenuous activity.

Cain (Jeff Hordley) unexpectedly returned to the village early from his trip to Scotland after he visited Debbie (Charley Webb) and Zak.

He revealed that his father was supposedly doing better before he went for a lie down.

Just after Cain left the kitchen, Moira then received a frantic call from Debbie, who revealed the tragic news.

When Cain awoke from his slumber, he noticed that Moira was slouching over the kitchen table in tears.

Although he initially thought it had something to do with her brain tumour, Moira told him it was something else entirely.

He was left in utter shock by her message as she relayed Debbie’s heartbreaking news.

But Cain was not the only person who was shocked by the news, as it seems that ITV soap fans were also left devastated.

Taking to X – formerly known as Twitter – one user wrote: “Zak will be missed always.”

Moira Barton’s biggest Emmerdale storylines

Played by Natalie J. Robb, Moira has become one of Emmerdale’s most prominent characters since her debut in 2009.

AFFAIR WITH CAIN DINGLE

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In October 2011, Moira began an affair with Cain Dingle (Jeff Hordley), whom she had previously loathed.

At the time, she was married to first husband and childhood sweetheart John (James Thornton).

JOHN’S DEATH

In the characters’ backstory, John and Moira had been married since 1990. They shared three children: Adam, Hannah (now Matty) and Holly.

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While John struggled to forgive Moira’s infidelity, he also realised he couldn’t live without her.

Ultimately, the character of John was written out by having a car accident and fatal cardiac arrest.

Afterwards, Moira and Cain began a relationship and later married.

ADAM’S PATERNITY

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It transpired that Cain was not the first man that Moira had an affair with.

She previously slept with John’s brother James (Bill Ward) – with the revelation that he is her son Adam’s biological father.

MURDER OF EMMA BARTON

James’ estranged wife Emma (Gillian Kearney) was introduced as a soap villain, reuniting with her clan after two decades.

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In October 2017, Emma was killed off in a who-dunnit storyline after being pushed off a viaduct.

She reappeared one last time in December 2017 for a flashback, where her killer was revealed to be archenemy Moira.

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Emmerdale is available to watch on ITV1 and stream on ITVX.

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Saturday night’s episode of Strictly Come Dancing marked a major milestone for this season. Love Island star Tasha Ghouri, who is paired up with professional dancer Aljaz Skorjanec, received the first “10” score of the 2024 competition, clocking up a near-perfect total of 39 for her Coachella-themed, selfie stick-waving Charleston, a seriously impressive feat just four weeks into the live shows. And yet this victorious moment has been overshadowed by two brief interactions that took place away from the dance floor – and they were so fleeting that you might well have missed them the first time around. The storm of conjecture they have prompted is perhaps the first sign that Strictly’s post-scandal era will prove very tricky indeed to navigate.

Towards the end of the show, the celebrities and their professional partners gathered in the “Clauditorium” – the upstairs area where host Claudia Winkleman chats to the contestants in between performances – before the voting lines opened, just as they do every week. This time, though, dancer Katya Jones was captured on camera as she appeared to move opera singer Wynne Evans’s hand off her midriff and onto her hip. Earlier in the programme, she seemed to reject a high five from her partner. Seeing these two incidents in quick succession moved viewers to start speculating about whether Jones was feeling uneasy. Social media was soon awash with comments from Strictly fans: “Something is off,” one Twitter/X viewer claimed, while others described the interaction as “uncomfortable”.

The pair quickly moved to shut down the rumour mill, sharing an Instagram video in which they said they were “just messing around”. In his post, Evans wrote the high fives were a “running joke” between them. Jones, a Strictly veteran of eight years, later doubled down with another video on Sunday, describing the row as “quite absurd” and asking fans to focus their attention on Evans’s “amazing” progress in the competition. “Even the idea that it made me feel uncomfortable or offended me in any way is complete nonsense,” she said. And this morning, Evans discussed the matter on his BBC Radio Wales show, revealing he had been left “heartbroken by the things that have been written about [him]” and again referring to the moment as “a stupid joke that went wrong”, one which “has been totally misinterpreted”. Reports have suggested that the show’s welfare team have checked in on the pair, and no further action is planned.

In the wake of the backstage drama that has gripped Strictly this year, it seems inevitable that viewers will be on high alert for any whisper of behind-the-scenes strife, real or imagined. Last month, the BBC published the results of its probe into past contestant Amanda Abbington’s complaints levelled at former-pro Giovanni Pernice. The corporation upheld complaints relating to verbal bullying and harassment, but found that Pernice had not been physically aggressive, and also issued an apology to Abbington. Before that, over the summer, dancer Graziano Di Prima left Strictly, later admitting to having kicked his celebrity partner Zara McDermott during a rehearsal.

Although the long-running investigation may have wrapped up, it has cast a definite shadow over the usually sparkling proceedings. This shadow has proved hard to shake off, despite the fact that Strictly seems to have adopted a business-as-usual approach (the row hasn’t yet been alluded to on the show, although chaperones are now present during dance rehearsals and welfare protocols have been bolstered). Against this backdrop, it’s hardly surprising that fans are perhaps reading into any unusual onscreen interactions more closely than they might have done a few years ago: right now, everything that happens on air is being viewed through the prism of past scandals.

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Perhaps because we didn’t see the tension brewing last season before it exploded into the press, we’ve become obsessed with sleuthing on any purported signs of discontent. In the wake of such controversy, this 20th anniversary season of Strictly was always going to be a difficult one for the show, for precisely this reason: both the media and the fans are more highly attuned to any potential cracks in the glittering facade. Whereas once we might have scrutinised each dance pairing for any proof of explosive romantic chemistry that could lead to a “Strictly curse” scenario – look at that eye contact during the Argentine tango! – our new default is to search for discord instead.

As the competition rolls on and fans remain hyper-vigilant, contestants, pros and the show’s bosses will need to be braced for more scrutiny, and be ready to carefully manage any possible fallout. The way we watch Strictly, it seems, has changed – and it will probably take more than a few smiling reassurances to build back viewers’ trust.

The BBC director general has said he has “kind of banned” referring to its high-profile staff as “talent” as the corporation grapples with the fallout from controversies involving a number of senior presenters.

Tim Davie was speaking after the BBC launched an independent review of its workplace culture after scandals including the one surrounding the disgraced presenter Huw Edwards.

Other controversies have included a furore over the welfare of contestants on the 2023 season of Strictly Come Dancing, and the sacking of the presenter Jermaine Jenas after complaints about his workplace conduct.

Speaking to Nick Robinson on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Davie said no one at the corporation was “indispensable”. He told Robinson: “We often refer to people like yourself as talent, but I’ve kind of banned that. You’re a presenter, I’m a leader of the organisation, and we’re here to serve.

“I do think over the last decade or so we’ve seen fundamental changes in the culture in this industry, and it hasn’t been completely unique [to the BBC that] those that have had power in places can often use that in bad ways. I think the BBC is utterly committed – you see us acting in good faith to get at this [issue] – and I would say [it is] important that everyone is treated equally regardless of rank.”

The corporation last week announced the start of an independent review into its workplace culture by Grahame Russell, the executive chair and founder of the management consultancy Change Associates.

The review would “be helpful for us” in “sorting this culture”, Davie said, adding: “It’s about how people deploy power in a workplace, we’ve all seen it, it’s not unique to the BBC. Many good or bad things happen in the new age, but one thing we should take comfort from is that things are improving. People need to speak up and everyone at every level needs to be heard.”

The BBC boss was also asked if there had been progress on Edwards returning the estimated £200,000 salary he was paid between his arrest and leaving the corporation in April. He said there had been “some dialogue with the lawyers, but we’re yet to resolve that issue”, and suggested he was waiting for Edwards to respond.

Asked if he believed the money would be returned, Davie said: “I think the ball is clearly not in my court on that one.”

Edwards pleaded guilty in July to three counts of making indecent images of children, having accessed indecent photographs of children as young as seven that were sent to him by a convicted paedophile. He was given a six-month suspended prison sentence.

Davie was speaking before a speech to the Future Resilience Forum in London, where he appealed to the government to bolster funding of the World Service amid what he called an “all-out assault on truth worldwide” by hostile states and others.

“Bad actors” such as Russia were already moving into the void left by the loss of audiences for the BBC World Service by setting up in places such as Lebanon to pump out “unchallenged propaganda”, said Davie, as he warned that the stakes were high. “We are at a moment of choice. A choice to step aside and allow disinformation to destabilise our societies and disrupt our democracies. Or to fight back and pursue truth.”