Joanna Page: 'I couldn't be on Emmerdale'

Joanna Page: 'I couldn't be on Emmerdale'
Joanna Page: 'I couldn't be on Emmerdale' (Image credit: PA Archive/Press Association Ima)

Joanna Page has said she could never join her soap star husband James for a scene on Emmerdale - because they'd giggle too much. The former Gavin & Stacey star, whose other half plays John Barton on the show, admitted she loves seeing him wearing his farmer's costumes. But she revealed: "I don't think we'd be able to film together because we'd probably start laughing." She continued: "We've done panto together and we couldn't get through that without giggling. I know him so well, so looking at him and pretending that he was someone else would just make me giggle. "I'd think, 'I know you're not John Barton the farmer from Emmerdale because I was washing your pants this morning in our washing machine in Dulwich' so I wouldn't be able to take it seriously. But I would quite like filming in the countryside." Joanna also insisted she doesn't get jealous when James has to film romantic scenes on the pre-watershed soap. "They can't really do very much on Emmerdale, it doesn't really get that saucy so I'm not really that bothered about it!" she added. "Also, we've been together now for so long. And it's part of the business. I'm more worried about him having his hand up a cow's bum."

Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 


An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.