As Emmerdale kicks off a storyline surrounding the return of Samson Dingle (Sam Hall), bosses have drafted in a soap heavyweight to undertake her sixth soap role!
Angela Hazeldine will be heading back to the Yorkshire Dales after playing farmer Lara way back in 2018, this time as a new character who’ll be involved in the process of Samson’s prison release.
Her most prominent role in soap came in Channel 5’s Family Affairs, in which she played Gemma Craig for four years, from 1999 until 2003, leaving before the show’s ultimate axe came in 2005.
She returned to her soap roots in 2008, playing Claire Baker in Doctors, before her first stint in Emmerdale.
In 2019, she played a social worker in Hollyoaks, before appearing as Karen Glen for three episodes of Coronation Street in 2020.
Outside of being a soap mainstay, Angela also dabbles in the music industry; she sings and plays keyboards in the Circus Electric, a band born from the demise of her former group, Shepherd’s Pi, which included a number of her co-stars, while also performing as the lead singer of Secluded Sea.
Why is Samson Dingle in prison?
Samson’s legal problems began when he formed a friendship with show newcomer, Josh Cope (Osian Morgan), who, while initially seeming like a positive influence on Samson, soon showed his true, dark colours.
Initially, his mask slipped when he grotesquely harassed Amy Wyatt (Natalie Ann Jamieson) as she worked at the Hide, but things got even worse when he started to transphobically terrorise her husband, Matty Barton (Ash Palmisciano).
As their treatment of Matty intensified, an altercation broke out after hours at the Hide and rapidly spun into an attempted robbery, and with Matty holding a knife, Josh shoved Samson forward into him and, by extension, the knife.
Despite Samson knowing full well that the stabbing was a complete accident, Josh’s manipulation saw him coerced into reporting Matty for intentionally knifing him, lying through his teeth to the police and resulting in Matty’s arrest and imprisonment.
Matty’s time in prison saw him face incredible danger, as he desperately tried to ensure that his being a trans man wasn’t discovered by the wider prison population.
Things took an incredibly dark turn when Amy accidentally outed his identity to a particularly dangerous inmate.
Finding solace in his cellmate, Matty made the terrifying decision to have him beat him mercilessly before his release, ensuring he’d be placed on the hospital wing before any of the other inmates could reach him and potentially do worse.
The Dingle family fractured, with Matty’s mum, Moira Dingle (Natalie J Robb) desperate to see her son freed and actively taking on Samson’s dad and stepmum, Sam and Lydia Dingle (James Hooton and Karen Blick).
With Moira having convinced Lydia that Matty was telling the truth, she set about ensuring that Samson, who was still sticking to his original account of what’d happened, told the truth and eventually, he confessed all to his family and the police.
As a result, Samson was arrested and charged with perverting the course of justice, being sentenced to four years in prison, and bringing his time on the show to a tragic end.
This week sees Moira learn that Samson is due to be released and that the Dingle clan are intent on welcoming him back into the fold, much to her sheer disgust.
Upcoming scenes will see Matty himself attempt to convince her that she needs to forgive Samson once and for all.