One wouldn’t normally associate the Yorkshire-set soap opera Emmerdale with the hideous spectacle of the living dead, despite the occas­ional flirtations of the genre with all things supernatural (we particularly relished the wonderfully daft Coronation Street storyline in which residents were haunted by the ghost of Street battleaxe ‘Poison’ Ivy Tilsley, not to ment­ion the more recent one in which teenage Sophie Webster claimed to be possessed by said spirit!)

It’s surprising to learn, then, that two of Emmerdale’s young actors – Dominic Brunt and Mark Charnock (the show’s Paddy and Marlon) – are also the chaps behind the Leeds Zombie Film Festival, which will be making its second appearance this April. Dominic got in touch to ask if we could draw our readers’ attention to this celebration of the shambling screen undead, and of course we are only too happy to oblige. Dominic, it turns out, is not just an obsessive zombie buff but also a long-time FT reader (“to my wife’s dismay I never throw a copy away”) and the proud owner of the ‘Cottingley Fairies’ house, where Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths launched one of the greatest sagas in forteana by photographing little people at the bottom of their garden.

The Second Leeds Zombie Film Festival will run from 12 midday to 12 midnight at the Cott­age Road Cinema, Leeds, on Sunday 26 April 2009, with a day pass costing a mere £15 and with proceeds going towards the WSPA (World Society for the Protection of Animals). If you’re in the area, why not go along and meet fellow forteans Dominic and Mark?

More details at www.leedszombiefilmfestival.com