River City - 15/12/2009

Preparations for Liz's Christmas Show were in full swing but her approach to directing was getting up the noses of all involved. Everyone thought the script was lacking humour but Liz would not be told. When Liz fell ill the residents of Shieldinch agreed to go on with the show but they had caveats: Malcolm had to be the dame and the script needed rewritten to be more like a pantomime. Malcolm agreed and the play was back on. However, Charlie's script revision meant that it wasn't long before there was little left of Liz's original vision. When Liz recovered from her illness, and went to see how rehearsals were progressing, she was horrified to discover her Christmas play had turned into a panto and that Malcolm was the star of the show. Malcolm tried to convince Liz that they would change everything back but Liz felt humiliated and refused to be a part of the panto. Charlie and Malcolm set to work making the script closer to Liz's original but retained some of the more fun aspects. Charlie went to tell Liz about the compromise and assured her that Malcolm had been instrumental in protecting her work. The panto began and Liz sneaked into the audience to see it. She was pleasantly surprised by what she found. Liz eventually took to the stage as the guardian angel when Lydia dropped out. A proud Malcolm and Liz trod the boards together and made up. Elsewhere Ewan was concerned about Lenny's continued attempts to find Lydia's adopted son. Lenny wouldn't be dissuaded though and carried on with his search. Meanwhile Ewan was having issues at home. Lydia and Amber were keen to get Joanne out of the house and so Ewan persuaded Ruth to go and have a word with her sister. When Ruth's attempts to bring Joanne home ended in a row Lydia stood up for Joanne and said she could stay. Ruth was cross with Ewan: he'd begged her to go round, and she had ended up being thrown out by Lydia. A confused Ewan then had a go at Lydia. Amber was upset at Ewan's treatment of her mother and she lashed out at him. Ewan retaliated by telling Amber that Lydia wasn't perfect - she'd given up a baby for adoption before Amber was born! Amber was reeling by the revelations about the baby but, when Lydia explained the circumstances, she decided to support her mother. Lydia felt sure that it must have been Lenny who told Amber and confronted him. Ewan put Lydia straight and explained he only knew because Lenny had been trying to find the boy. Lydia was shocked and delighted when Lenny told her he had found her son! It was appraisals day at the salon and Robbie and Jack were annoyed by the strained atmosphere between Hayley and Gordon. They were more rattled when they discovered Hayley had been given a Christmas bonus but they hadn't! Hayley realised that Gordon had given her the bonus in lieu of a Christmas present and was hurt by his seeming lack of care. Gordon tried to make thing up to Hayley by buying her lots of presents. When he told Hayley he had asked a lady in the shop to help him find things for a woman in her twenties Hayley's feelings were hurt again. Robbie and Jack intervened and told Gordon and Hayley they needed to talk. Hayley explained how she felt and that she didn't want Gordon to think of her as simply a woman in her twenties but as his daughter. The pair vowed to get to know one another better.