Vera's Brenda Blethyn praises County Durham actress who 'fooled' viewers in latest episode

Vera’s Brenda Blethyn

Brenda Blethyn has praised Vera guest star Catherine Dryden, after the County Durham actress had viewers ‘fooled’ in the latest episode of the hit ITV drama.

After close to a year away from screens and mystery over what happened to the rest of series 11, Vera finally made its return to screen earlier this month, with Vital Signs, the first of the two ‘missing’ episodes pulling in close to four million viewers as Brenda’s famous on-screen alias had to get to the bottom of the murder of a .local GP, whose body was found in a burnt out car.

As ever there were plenty of twists and turns as DCI Stanhope got back on the case, with Vera fans kept guessing right to the very end and it was very much the same as Vera settled back into its 8pm Sunday night slot again at the weekend, with The Way The Wind Blows rounding out series 11.

This time, Vera was called into action to investigate the death of mum Lisa Millworth, whose body was washed up by the River Tyne, after she went missing on a night out. The finger of suspicion pointed firmly in the direction of her close friend, Joanne Smith, played by Catherine, after it became apparent that there was some jealousy over a man they had both been seeing.

As Joanne was hauled in for a grilling from DCI Stanhope it looked like the game was vey much up for Joanne, only *SPOILER ALERT* for it to end up being Lisa’s husband that was responsible for her death, as he finally confessed all to Vera in the closing scenes, before being carted off in a police car.

Prior to the episode going out on ITV, Catherine took to Twitter to share her excitement at being involved, writing: “Hello TV Debut…eeekkk Super Excited & Beyond Grateful to be guest starring as Joanne Smith in this weeks episode of VERA @VeraSeries laongside the brilliant @BrendaBlethyn & @kennydoughty. Tune in tomorrow Sunday 22nd of January @ 8pm on ITV1”

Brenda then shared Catherine’s post and added: “great to work with you Catherine,” before another Vera star, Riley Jones, revealed his 10 year friendship with Catherine.

Sharing a photo of them on his Twitter timeline, Riley, famous to millions of viewers for playing DC Mark Edwards, wrote: “Massive well done to this one making their TV debut tonight! @C3Dryden you bloody smashed it! And had a lot of you fooled! Friends for 10 years. Performed on stage together, lived together, and now on TV together! Super proud of you. Can’t wait to see what’s next”

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