For a special ‘Face Your Fears Day’ Emmerdale episode to be aired soon, Rhona (Zoe Henry) sets Marlon (Mark Charnock) the challenge of driving his new adapted vehicle, the prospect of which he finds extremely daunting, as he hasn’t driven since his stroke.

‘He is hopeful,’ Mark Charnock told us. ‘He wants that independence back and he wants to prove to his friends that he’s not totally reliant on them. And that they don’t have to be there at every turn.

So yes he is hopeful. But he doesn’t have that self confidence and he doesn’t have that self aggression about just doing it. I think a part of him would rather not confront learning again.’

Mark himself can relate to the difficulty of facing your fears and he told us that how someone approaches getting over their fears very much depends on their personality and the situation.

‘For example, for me the idea of going on a roller coaster would worsen my anxiety around heights,’ he explained. ‘But I think watching a horror film does perhaps exorcise your fears. I think psychoanalysts would likely say that watching a horror film in some ways is good as it exorcises so many physiological demons. But you are living out the fears in the safe environment of your sitting room.

‘Whereas on a rollercoaster – you are not in the safety of your sitting room but rattling around at a very high speed on a very high thing. I think it’s not going to stop you feeling frightened. So for me it is entirely dependent on the circumstances and what your actual fear is.’

He cited one occasion when he did confront his own fears head-on – with a little help from his Emmerdale cast mates.

‘I did the singing show at Christmas on ITV called Britain Get Singing and we were singing in a group. I’m not a singer and even though I wasn’t singing solo I was really really nervous,’ he admitted.

‘But do you know what? Going through it was an amazing process. I was working with six other members of the Emmerdale cast who were extremely supportive and kind. So I suppose it was not unlike Marlon going through his driving ordeal and finding strength in group support. The support I got from my cast mates was amazing and by the end of it I almost couldn’t wait to do it. Which was an amazing transformation that happened over 72 hours and purely down to the people I did it with.’

Joined on the stage by fellow cast members Lisa Riley (Mandy), Olivia Bromley (Dawn), Jay Kontzle (Billy), Daisy Campbell (Amelia), Bradley Johnson (Vinny) and Lawrence Robb (Mackenzie) the group sang Merry Christmas Everyone and had the judges praising their ‘joyful’ performance.

Judge Jason Manford singled out Mark, pointing out how nervous he’d been beforehand.

‘It was like jumping out of a plane, but I had the best six parachutes you could wish for!’ Mark replied.

‘It was a big deal for me,’ Mark told us, recalling the experience. ‘I will never be a singer but getting up there and doing that, it was really good for me in terms of thinking if I can do this – other stuff that gives me anxiety I can likely deal with as well.’

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