News Round-up

'Pappy' to play Santa Claus on GENERAL HOSPITAL today
Mike Muscat will play jolly ‘ol Saint Nick on GENERAL HOSPITAL today. Muscat, who played the criminal Butcher on the show for 25 episodes in the 1980s, will return to the fictional city of Port Charles, N.Y., to appear alongside characters Damian Spinelli (Bradford Anderson) and Maxie Jones (Kirsten Storms).

"It's a different kind of Santa," said Muscat of his character in a phone interview from his Los Angeles-area home, "It's somewhere between Bad Santa and Miracle on 34th Street."

Tears and laughter at Staff funeral
Tears and laughter mixed at the moving funeral service for Kathy Staff, a former UK soap actress who was best known for playing Nora Batty in LAST OF THE SUMMER WINE.

The actress's husband, John, and daughters, Katherine and Susan, sat among mourners who smiled and laughed as his eulogy was read out recalling their early careers.

They first met in 1968 while both auditioning for CASTLE HAVEN, Yorkshire TV's first soap opera, he said. They would meet at Stalybridge train station to get the train to Leeds for the show - "a sort of Brief Encounter with tripe", he said

HOLLYOAKS beauty Louise dies in mysterious circumstances after holding groom Warren at gunpoint
A woman's wedding day is supposed to be the happiest day of her life.

But when Hollyoaks troubled bride Louise Summers's special day arrives, it's not all flowers and champagne.

Louise, played by Roxanne McKee, has been left reeling after finding out her fiance Warren Fox (Jamie Lomas) has been having an affair with her best friend Mandy Richardson (Sarah Jayne Dunn). She is equally distressed when she finds out she is pregnant.

Unbeknown to Warren and Mandy, Louise was plotting to kill her fiance on their wedding day and frame her pal with the murder. But as with all soapland plots, nothing ever goes to plan and Louise ends up meeting her maker.

INTERVIEW: OLTL's Peter Bartlett (Nigel)
"I worked with Tuc [Watkins] last week. He's a delightful guy. And he looks [great] in his saffron robes!"

Economy leaves DAYS royalty out in the cold
Celia Rivenbark writes: "Call me thickheaded, but even with all the signs --- escalating unemployment, frozen credit, unprecedented numbers of housing foreclosures, a stock market in free-fall and all the rest of it --- I have to admit I didn't really believe we were in a Depression until John and Marlena got fired."