A couple of weeks ago in Emmerdale, Manpreet Sharma (Rebecca Sarker) caught her colleague Liam Cavanagh (Jonny McPherson) urinating in the water cooler.

Manpreet’s wealth of medical knowledge wasn’t needed for her to work out that this wasn’t a normal sight to behold. She sat Liam down and wondered what on earth was going on.

He explained that he had been having problems controlling his bladder, which is a key symptom of prostate cancer. Naturally, GP Manpreet assumed that GP Liam had organised some tests, and was deeply disappointed when he revealed that he hadn’t.

‘The moment he concedes defeat and admits he’s got a problem, I think he sees it as a mark of weakness, almost’, star Jonny McPherson said.

‘There’s that playing into it, also he has a very busy life and I think he always wants to kick the can down the road – do it tomorrow, do it tomorrow.

‘Without going into sweeping generalisations I think it is a predominantly male tendency, in the same vein as not wanting to show weakness, is not wanting to admit you’ve got a problem and just hope that it all goes away.’

Liam had some tests and also told Chas Dingle (Lucy Pargeter) his news. Over the past few days, he’s tried to keep himself busy, but has ultimately felt incredibly anxious over the fact his whole life could change once the results come through.

In tonight’s episode, Liam was given some news.

With Chas by his side, Liam read through the document and learnt that it is very unlikely he has cancer.

The couple were relieved, but Liam confirmed to Chas that the hospital still needs to work out why he’s going to the toilet so often.

It’s not cancer, which is a positive, but Liam still has a health concern and hopefully, he will receive the answer soon.

Jonny added: ‘I think it’s one of the main reasons that soap is successful and it’s so particular to the genre of continuing drama that people that watch it get familiar with the characters over many, many years.

‘They watch them go through the everyday diagnoses, difficulties, deaths, marriage – all of these things they can relate to in a way that other genres don’t necessarily afford.

‘If someone’s watching the programme and has similar concerns and thinks, “I really should get that sorted,” then it’s a job well done.’