User blog:BigBruv/Exclusive: Ashley Rivera interview

Digital Spy has recently caught up with co-producer Ashley Rivera to give us the rundown of Beverley Terrace over the next few months. The interview follows:

What are we expecting for Christmas 2014? "A lot. It's going to be a (literally) explosive Christmas, and everyone's lives will be on the line. We have a hostage which will be taking place in The Golden, which was very exciting. During planning, we felt that a single hostage wasn't 'dramatic' enough, so we threw in an explosion and I think it worked really well. As well as that, we've got some Sally and Nick drama which will lead up to New Year, which I won't spoil."

Will there be any deaths? "There might be deaths. Whether some of the cast are leaving over the Christmas period or not is classified, but what we have done is left you hanging. There will certainly be injuries, and after that it will just be a case of 'will they die, won't they die'."

Would it be weird for characters to leave so soon? "A lot of the cast are on very thin contracts. Since this is a new soap, I didn't dwell on contracts and constituted some monthly contracts, a few half-year contracts then we did a year contract for the Mellen family. It all depends on storylines. The cast are able to leave at the end of their contracts if they so wish. Although the Mellen family are on a year contract, this means that I have prepared a year-long storyline for them. It is likely that they'd leave after their storyline has finished – because it makes sense that way."

Can you give us any hints to certain storylines you have prepared for 2015? "We do have a basic outline, but it's very, very basic. We have the crash for Alex some point in January, and we've got Adelayo Adedayo playing a love interest for Dan, which will be very different. I've also got something prepared for Samuel, but that's confidential.

What made you decide to limit the show to three days a week, unlike television soaps? "i find writing much harder than script-to-screen. You have to have the imagination to capture facial expressions and be able to put them into context. This requires a lot of thought and a lot of work, hense why I decided to limit myself to three episodes per week. I was, however, excited to write over Christmas. We have six episodes on the Christmas week (Monday through Friday, with two episodes on Thursday), then a further five episodes for the New Year (Monday through Friday). I couldn't do that every week, but because there was so much to write about, it was a blast.

Have you got any big stunts lined up? "Apart from the hostage at Christmas, we haven't really thought of stunts for next year. We do have some really great episodes though, including the climax to the Mellen storyline, which will take place in the Summer."

Beverley Terrace airs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays on Digital Spy, at 9pm.