Kim Tate (Claire King) in Emmerdale is one of the savviest characters in the soap opera and has plenty of adversaries in the village. She frequently gets into heated arguments with them.
She has been seen recently going toe-to-toe with Rose Jackson (Christine Tremarco), following Will’s (Dean Andrews) ex-wife’s attempt to unseat Kim from Home Farm. Additionally, there have been some tense interactions with Ruby Fox-Miligan (Beth Cordingly), whose taunts can be sharp and clever.
Though Kim is capable of taking just as many jabs as she does, you won’t hear the adjective “old” used against her.
Claire King told Woman’s Weekly magazine that her co-star Emma Atkins, who plays Charity Dingle, is very insistent on ageist insults not being used.
‘She kindly takes out all the “old” references in the scripts for me,’ Claire said. ‘When people call Kim an “old witch”, Emma says “I’m not having that” and she removes the world old.’
This is something Claire completely agrees with, as she explained: ‘If you think about it, you wouldn’t have a reference to someone’s race or colour or anything else, so she takes out the ageist comments and I think that’s great.’
Claire, who joined the Emmerdale cast when she was 27, is now 62 and she said she doesn’t feel any different now, ‘Just a bit creakier. That’s what you expect when you get to 60. I’ve got more doctor’s appointments than I used to have when I was 25, but otherwise I’m enjoying life and I don’t think of my age.’
This is partly because she loves playing Kim Tate so much.
‘I’m a little biased, but I think she’s the best character on TV, so I’m very grateful. She’s got the balance of everything. She’s got the soft side, the hard side, and she’s big and bold and ruthless.
‘People adore Kim. They’ll come up to me in the street and say, “I love you, you’re a great b***h.” Not normal conversations!’
Luckily for those fans, Claire said she has no plans to retire.
‘I’m still enjoying Kim and she’s still up there – she’s not become doddery yet,’ she said.
Far from it, as Kim is currently in her rightful place in the middle of the drama, as Caleb Miligan (William Ash) is planning to build an empire to rival hers in his latest bid to destroy the woman he blames for the death of his father.
Meanwhile there are troubles closer to home, as we saw Kim and Will dump Rose Jackson in a remote location and she subsequently disappeared – with her belongings found scattered by the roadside. Will and Kim are both suspicious of each other, knowing that each of them is capable of killing Rose.
The search for Rose increased in urgency when Dawn (Olivia Bromley) announced that her son Evan, who has leukaemia, needed a bone marrow transplant and as many of the family would need to be tested as possible in the search for a match – which included Rose.
In a twist on Friday (August 23)’s episode, viewers learned that Dawn had made up the bone marrow transplant story and that Will ‘wouldn’t know what hit him’ when her plan played out.
We’re about to find out what happened to Rose Jackson – but will the big reveal lead to the downfall of Will – or Kim?
