Call me vanilla, but my eyebrow (just one of them) was certainly raised when I heard that Hollyoaks was airing a throuple plotline.
Warren Fox (Jamie Lomas) no longer has to pick between the objects of his affection as Mercedes McQueen (Jennifer Metcalfe) suggested the very modern resolution to the ‘who do I have sex with’ issue.
And if you thought it unlikely that Gemma Johnson would ever go along with it, then you’re not alone – actress Tisha Merry was right there with you!
But, as time has gone on, it’s begun to make sense why the troubled and volatile character could be pulled into such an arrangement, despite her loathing of Mercedes.
‘We were quite shocked,’ the actress told me in an interview with Metro ahead of a busy week for her alter-ego. ‘The three of us were like, “really?” because it was kind of against what my motive as a character is.
‘I thought if Gemma were to go along with something like this, there would be an ulterior motive. She’s quite a calculated person. She thinks everything through, she’s used to playing games, conning people, so to be part of a throuple – her main intention was to win Warren back.
‘But when you really think about it, the time that they’re in and what’s going on in each of their lives…
‘Mercedes is just out of rehab. She’s desperate to claim back her life. And then you’ve got Gemma, who’s found out about Donny’s rape and is absolutely all over the place and just wants to see comfort – Mercedes propositions this offer – we’ll all feel empowered.
‘And I think Gemma just goes along with it, but soon realises that it’s an absolute disaster and can’t possibly end well.’
Pressed on this point – that it’s going to end badly – Tisha decided not to be even a little bit cryptic given the answer to my question is pretty obvious.
‘Oh, course, it’ll end in disaster yeah, I think they all know that going into it, they may just be being a bit optimistic!’
That said, Tisha – also known for her role as Steph Britton in ITV’s Coronation Street – doesn’t know as far ahead as she’d like. Admitting she likes to have a lot of organisation in her life, she explained she was initially unnerved by the working ‘carnage’ at Hollyoaks, which can include last minute re-writes and filming.
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But now that she is settled in the team, she has found herself able to thrive in such a situation.
‘It’s quite interesting, and it gets us all talking as well. The minute one of us hears what’s happening, we’re like, “oh my goodness”, it gets the buzz going, the excitement.
‘I’m such an organised person, so I literally thrive off organisation. And Hollyoaks is just like “we’re just gonna amend this. We’re gonna change this, we’re gonna tweak this.”
‘At first, my head quite literally fell off, and now I’m like, “No, I love it.”
‘Once my brain got used to the way that it runs it’s a case of bring it on, let’s do this! I always say soaps are so fast moving because of the deadlines so if you can do a soap, you can do anything.’
It’s not the only thing that Tisha has settled into. The actress, who made her debut in the Brookside crossover (‘I can now say I’ve been in three soaps!’) is full of praise for her new colleagues.
‘With Hollyoaks, I find there’s a lot of flexibility. There’s a lot of room for actors to get involved with scripts and storylines. It’s a very intimate cast where everyone gets on, and everyone’s very friendly.
‘I feel like this is really homey, and possibly because I’m older now – I was only 19 when I started Corrie – but I feel so comfortable and happy.
‘The crew are honestly some of the best crew members I think I’ve ever worked with in my professional career. There are just some lovely, lovely people, and there’s a very much a feel of everyone just working together.
‘Whether you’re a cast member, a crew member, you’re in press, or you’re in the socials, whatever you are, we all are all members of Hollyoaks, and that really does feel like that.
‘I enjoy working with absolutely everybody. And I don’t mean to say that to sound really cliche, because I don’t mean to be, but I have the best time.’
While there are plenty of smiles off screen, some of the more traumatic scenes require cast and crew to get into darker frames of mind. And Tisha warns that there are plenty of scenes that are hard to watch over the next week as Gemma sees the footage of her dad Donny (Louis Emerick) being raped.
‘Donny’s in a zone where he’s spiraling and really not dealing with the event that took place that night in Liverpool, and his mental health just declines,’ Tisha explained. ‘Gemma is quite involved in saving him from himself and rescuing him in his time of need.
‘The truth, finally, after these long months and months of keeping the secret, is finally revealed. The viewers who have been invested for as long as they have, so this dark secret that he’s been keeping has been going on since October, so it’ll finally come to light.
‘They are really, really, really emotional scenes.’
It can be intimidating for anyone to let their guard down and make themselves vulnerable to perform scenes such as this, but working with actors like Louis – a stalwart who has featured in Brookside and Coronation Street – has made things a breeze for Tisha.
‘We absolutely love it,’ she enthused, her love of her castmates evident in her voice. ‘We love our family. Me, Harvi, Anya, Nate, we’ve all loved working together. We’ve loved our scenes. We loved filming over Christmas; there were some cool scenes. We just love it. We all get on so well, and we know each other well as actors, that it’s just great.
‘We all feel so comfortable with each other. We spend most of our time laughing and joking, and it barely feels like work half the time.
‘You’ve got to, because the traumatic scenes can be so taxing on your mind. It’s so strange to do that, and then they shout cut, and then it’s over, and then you’re back to normal life.
‘It’s so important to have that good relationship on set, where you can just bring that lightness to it, but also remain professional and supportive in those scenes. It’s a fine balance, but we seem to manage it really well.’