Marlon Dingle (Mark Charnock)

Marlon Dingle

Marlon - the tall lanky chef with the biggest heart (but still can't make meringue)

Marlon first appeared on Emmerdale in 1996 as nephew of Zak Dingle. He arrived in a red sports car and later brought his dad Albert to the village. Marlon supported his uncle Zak through his testicular cancer and became good friends with Paddy Kirk.

Marlon started working at Kathy Glover's establishment - tea rooms at day and wine bar at night, which is when he first showed his cooking skills but it is as chef at the Woolpack that he has received the most acclaim even working with celebrity chef Anthony Worrell Thompson.

He met the love of his life Tricia Stokes, a dippy girl with a heart of gold, and after a few months of misunderstandings, the couple got together but the path of true love never runs smooth and it was a while before they eventually got married.

A few months later, Tricia was offered the chance to star in a Bollywood film and went to India for six months. While she was away, Marlon was dreadfully lonely and had a drunken one night stand with his cousin Charity. When Tricia returned, the secret came out and she left Marlon. His desperate attempts to win her back seemed to have failed but she seemed willing to forgive him after reading a romantic list of her characteristics written by Marlon.

On New Year's Eve 2003, Tricia was injured during a storm which resulted in part of the Woolpack's roof collapsing on top of her. Tricia was found alive and rushed to hospital but suffered a heart attack. The hospital staff managed to revive her but it took a long time and subsequent tests revealed she had suffered serious brain damage. She was soon declared brain dead and the medical team asked for permission to switch off her life support machine. Marlon took some convincing to agree to her life support machine being turned off, as he was still determined that she would recover, but he finally agreed to turn off her machine on realising that there was no hope of her recovering.

He has never really gotten over Tricia. Even telling his second wife Donna (during their break-up after Donna had an affair) that Tricia had been his one true love.

Marlon's 'bromance' with Paddy Kirk is the best relationship he's ever had but even that has been tested when girlfriend Rhona Goskirk dumped Marlon because she'd fallen for Paddy. To complicate matters further, Rhona then discovered she was pregnant with Marlon's child.

The diagnosis of the baby as having Down's Syndrome finally reconciled the three friends and it will be interesting how they handle the new arrival.

Mark Charnock

Mark Charnock has been playing the part of Marlon Dingle, lanky Woolpack Chef, since 1996. Prior to that his most notable role was that of Brother Oswin, assistant to Cadfael in the ITV series of the same name.

Mark is a huge Manchester United supporter, and a big film fan; he has an eclectic taste, watching a lot of foreign language films, but his genre of choice is horror, specifically the Zombie film. Best friend Dominic Brunt (Paddy Kirk) shares this love and together they have hosted a zombie film festival in Leeds each year since 2008.

Mark and Dominic's obvious chemistry doesn't go unnoticed on-screen - the Marlon/Paddy duo makes for some great Emmerdale comedy moments. Add Zoe Henry to the mix and the Marlon/Paddy/Rhona trio works wonders. Until you throw in a love triangle, but - fingers crossed - that's been pretty much resolved, and normal service will resume.

Don't be fooled though - Mark may be good at the comedy but he sure knows how to make the viewers cry too. His heartbreaking performance when Marlon had to turn off wife Tricia's life support machine won him Best Dramatic Performance at The National Television Awards in 2004.