Emmerdale - just the facts

Emmerdale- just the facts (A article written in 2007)

Emmerdale (known as Emmerdale Farm until 1989) is a British television soap opera, set in the fictional village of the same name (known as Beckindale until 1994) in West Yorkshire, England. Much of the action takes place within the fictional village pub, The Woolpack. The show was created by Kevin Laffan & is the third highest-rating soap opera on British television, behind Eastenders and Coronation Street

The series is produced by Yorkshire Television (YTV) & broadcast on the ITV network, & was first aired on 16 October 1972. It was originally conceived & broadcast as a daytime programme in an afternoon slot, moving to its current position as an early evening programme in 1978.

Emmerdale is shown from Sunday to Friday at 7pm on ITV1. Repeat episodes & the omnibus of the show can be seen on ITV2.

Click here to view cottages in Britain and Ireland

Origins
Emmerdale Farm was originally modelled on the revolutionary soap-opera The Riordans, made by RTÉ, Ireland's broadcaster, from the mid-1960s to the end of the 70s. The Riordans broke new ground for soap operas by being filmed largely out of doors (on a farm owned, in the storyline, by Tom & Mary Riordan), rather than, as was the norm in British & American soap operas, being almost totally shot in studios (even 'outdoor' scenes were traditionally filmed indoors). The Riordans pioneered location shooting, with real farm animal & actors driving tractors. In the 1960s & 1970s, outdoor filming of television programmes using OBUs (Outdoor Broadcast Units) was in its infancy, due to the far higher costs involved, & the reliance on things like the weather that were out of the control of the programme makers.

The success of The Riordans showed that a soap opera could be filmed out of doors. Yorkshire Television sent people to The Riordans set in County Meath, Ireland to see the making of the programme at first hand.

On the basis of what they saw, the station began preparations for its own rural-based, outdoor-filmed, soap opera, called Emmerdale Farm. As with The Riordans, it was to be focused on one family, the Sugdens, & the name of their farm was also the name of the show.

Series background
As of 2007, the parish of Emmerdale (formerly Beckindale) is 500 years old.

The Miffield estate was the biggest employer in the village of Beckindale - situated 39 miles from Bradford & 52 miles from Leeds. Lord Miffield gave the lease of Emmerdale Farm, on the edge of the village, to the Sugden family in the 1850s out of gratitude, after Josh Sugden had sacrificed his life for the Earl's son in the Crimean War.

Josh's grandson Joseph married Margaret & they had a son Jacob. In the 1930s, Jacob Sugden, supposedly purchased Emmerdale Farm for his family. In 1945 he married Annie Pearson - daughter of farm labourer Sam Pearson.

Jacob had run the farm into the ground as he had drank away most of the profits leaving it in a sorry state. It was badly maintained & the future of the farm looked bleak at the time of Jacob's death on the 10 October 1972.

Jacob left a wife Annie & three grown children, two sons, Jack (the eldest) & Joe (the youngest of the three), & daughter Peggy. These characters would form the basis of the series Emmerdale Farm.

The first episode

The Sugden family in the first episodeThe first episode of Emmerdale Farm opened with the funeral of Jacob Sugden on the 16 October 1972.

Jacob had upset the family by leaving the farm to his eldest son, Jack, who had not been seen since 1964 when, at the age of 18, he left his family, heritage & Beckindale - for London.

Jack Sugden returned to the farm in this opening episode, although he chose to stay away from the funeral - only making his presence known after the service when the Sugdens returned to their home, Emmerdale Farm - where they found him waiting there for them.

The first lines uttered in this first episodes were spoken by Peggy Skilbeck:

Click here to view cottages in West Yorkshire

"Matt, who’s she?"

Peggy was referring to Marian Wilks who was watching the funeral cortege whilst out riding.

The Wilks proved to be new to the village, Marion's father Henry Wilks was a wealthy businessman.

In subsequent months Jack sold a share of the Farm to Annie, Joe, Peggy & his grandfather Sam Pearson. Emmerdale Farm Ltd was formed after Henry Wilks bought Sam’s share of the estate.

Evolution
Initially the show focused on the farm, & the Sugden family who lived on & ran it. As time went on, the show's focus moved to the nearby village of Beckindale. To reflect this change, the show's name was changed in 1989 to Emmerdale. Coinciding with the name change was the introduction of the Tates, who would emerge as the soap's leading family in the 1990s, overshadowing the Sugdens. In turn, the Tate family has since been supplanted, with the Dingle & King families taking centre stage in the early 2000s.

Village businesses
Emmerdale is a bustling place for business with:

Butler's Farm (owned by Home Farm Estates & leased & run by Andy Sugden)
Home Farm Estates (owned & run by Rosemary King)
Val's Interiors (owned by Val Lambert & Eric Pollard & run by Eric)
The Veterinary (owned & run by Paddy Kirk & Hari Prasad)
The Grange B&B (owned & run by Louise Appleton & Terry Woods)
Café Hope (owned & run by Viv & Bob Hope)
The Post Office (owned & run by Viv Hope)
King & Son's - who run haulage & bin collection services (owned by Matthew King (35%), Jimmy King (30%), Carl King (25%) & Scarlet Nicholls (10%) & run by Matthew, Jimmy & Carl)
Emmerdale Exclusive Cleaning Services (owned by Eric Pollard & David Metcalfe & run by David)
Windsor & Sugden Garage (owned by Scott Windsor & Jack Sugden & run by Scott & Debbie Dingle)
Debbie's Cars (owned & run by Chas & Debbie Dingle)
The Woolpack (owned & run by sisters Diane Sugden & Val Lambert)

Click here to view cottages in Yorkshire

Major storylines
Main article at Major Storylines of Emmerdale
Until 1993, Emmerdale was largely ignored by press & viewers alike in the face of much more well known soaps such as Coronation Street, EastEnders & Brookside. This however was changed when Emmerdale's plane crash storyline brought Emmerdale into the public eye, which has since kept the show as one of the most watched soap operas on British television. As well as the plane crash storyline, there have been several other major storylines including the famous storm of 2003, the Kings River explosion of 2006 & more recently, the murder of Tom King on Christmas Day, 2006.

Disasters
In addition to the sensational plane crash storyline, the Woolpack was blown up in the 1990s, & recently Kings River showhome collapsed after several explosions caused by a gas leak. The collapse claimed threes lives, Noreen Bell & estate agent David Brown were killed in the explosion & Dawn Woods later died in hospital from internal injuries.

Other disasters include:

1996 - Dave Glover dies in a fire after attending Biff & Linda's wedding.
2000 - Pete Collins & Butch Dingle are killed in a bus crash.
2000 - Long-running character Sarah Sugden dies in a barn fire.
2001 - Miss Jean Strickland, the headmistress, is struck & killed by a car driven by some of her students.
2002 - The church is burnt down by schizophrenic Zoe Tate.
2003 - A large storm hit Emmerdale which left parts of the village in ruins with collapsed power lines & trees, The Woolpack was damaged by its chimney collapsing through the roof into the bar area, & also out the front killing Tricia Dingle, characters such as Ashley Thomas, Louise Appleton & Nicola Blackstock become stuck on the roads as a result of the terrible weather. The disaster came ten years after the plane crash.
2005 - Zoe Tate & Callum Rennie destroy Home Farm in a gas explosion for revenge on the King's before leaving Emmerdale.
2005 - Max King dies instantly when the Land Rover he's in goes off the road & through a brick wall & explodes.
2006 - The vicarage burnt down after a stray spark ignited spilt vodka, with Debbie Dingle trapped inside.
2007 - A tampered van driven by Billy Hopwood crashed into a lake & sank with him & Victoria Sugden inside. Both survived.

Memorable exits
These characters would have made some of the most memorable exits from Emmerdale while still breathing. (For characters that left through death see below).

Kim Tate - Kim & her husband Steve Marchant stole a horse intent on selling it as they were experiencing a cash flow problem. As they where driving away from the scene Steve ran over Kathy Glover. While in hospital, Kim managed to make Kathy believe that Steve had not stopped his vehicle when he had hit her to make her husband seem like the sole villain of the piece - even though she had helped to plan the thievery of the horse. On the day of trial in January 1999, with the lawyers questioning Kathy's validity as a witness for Steve's hit-and-run crime, Kathy herself came to question how true Kim's words had been. For this, & numerous other crooked tricks, the police were soon on her trail. She confronted Chris Tate to try to get hold of money as a means of escape, & knocked him out savagely with a paperweight when he would not comply. She left with her son James in a helicopter, never to be seen again. The pilot asked her if she was Kim Marchant, & with her final words on the soap she replied, "No, it's Kim Tate".
Charity Tate - After Sadie King tricked Tom King into believing that Charity was having an affair with Cain Dingle, Tom called off the wedding to Charity. Despite later realising the lie, Tom was unable to convince Charity to reconcile with him, as all Charity wanted was revenge. She managed to get Jimmy King into bed after making him realise what Sadie was all about, & filmed them in bed together, & got him to confess that Sadie set her up. She took this tape to Tom & showed him it in front of his whole family. Charity gave Sadie a punch & left the soap despite an emotional plea from Tom King.
Zoe Tate - Zoe was facing a court case for the attempted murder of Scott Windsor. After being blackmailed into selling Home Farm to Sadie King, she took revenge by blowing up the building; in her final scene, she waited in a car in front of the building waiting for the explosion, then drove off & out of the soap.
Cain Dingle & Sadie King - The couple kidnapped Tom King, with Sadie pretending to have been double-crossed by Cain. The story took a number of twists & turns, with Cain's car going over a quarry, although it was later discovered to be empty, & Cain shooting Sadie, although it was later discovered that this was also faked. As they prepared to make their escape by plane, Cain betrayed Sadie, leaving her at the airfield, & he flew off over the village. Both Cain & Sadie left the soap.
Steph Forsythe - Steph finally did the right thing, even though it could have been in better circumstances when she pleaded guilty to the murder of brother Terence. This was to serve her dues for the death of Shelly Williams. Steph was then sentenced to life imprisonment, although it was in fact her estranged husband Adam who did the deed.

Filming locations
Location shooting originally occurred in the village of Arncliffe in Littondale, one of the less frequented valleys of the Yorkshire Dales. In exterior shots, the town's hotel, The Falcon, was used to represent the fictional Woolpack Hotel. Eventually the location of the shooting location became publicly known, which is perhaps what prompted the move to the village of Esholt. This location also became a tourist attraction. Now a purpose built set in Harewood is used. Location footage of the fictional market town of Hotten is shot in Otley. The Benton Park School in Rawdon & the primary school in Farnley are also used as shooting locations. Indoor scenes are mostly filmed in the Emmerdale production centre in Leeds (located next to the main YTV building). See on Google Earth here.

Visit Emmerdale Behind the Scenes for a full guided tour of all the filming locations used since 1972, right up to the present day.

Scheduling & popularity
Emmerdale Farm started as an afternoon soap opera on the ITV Network in 1972. Soon after the start the majority of ITV regions chose to accommodate the programme in the 7pm Tuesday & Thursday slot. Anglia Television & Thames Television preferred a Monday & Tuesday 5:15pm slot & saw the week's episodes before the rest of the network.

From 6 January 1988, all ITV regions networked the show in the Wednesday & Thursday 6.30pm slot. Anglia Television & Central Television chose to move the programme to 7pm on Tuesdays & Thursdays in February 1989 as they were screening the new daily Australian drama Home & Away in the Emmerdale Farm slot. This was the first time Anglia had screened Emmerdale Farm in the 7pm slot. Central were simply returning to the slots they used until December 1987. For a period Anglia & Central saw episodes one week later than other regions.

From January 1990 all other regions followed the Central & Anglia schedule in the familiar Tuesday & Thursday 7pm slot. Enjoying highs of 11 million viewers. During the mid 1990s Scottish Television used the 7pm slot to show daily regional programmes resulting in Emmerdale moving to 5:10pm. Scottish Television had always given preference to their own countryside soap opera Take the High Road, which was accommodated in a 7pm slot. After only several months in the earlier slot Scottish returned Emmerdale to the 7pm slot.

By 1 January 1997 ITV had opted to increase their output to three episodes a week with the additional episode being screened on Wednesdays. From 2 October 2000 a further two episodes were added on a Monday & Friday evening. A sixth episode to air on Sundays began in 2004.

The show is now ranked high in the British popularity stakes, being outdone regularly only by the two major mainstream soaps, Coronation Street & EastEnders. However, recent hour-long episodes which have competed with EastEnders have won the battle for viewing figures.

On Christmas Day 2005 Emmerdale attracted 6.2 million viewers where the villagers searched for Daz Eden & Belle Dingle who fell down a mine shaft.

On Monday 24 April 2006 8.5 million viewers watched as Sam Dingle & Alice Wilson got married.

On Monday 25 December 2006 over 7 million viewers watched as Tom King got pushed out of a window & fell to his death on his wedding day to Rosemary Sinclair.

Emmerdale is establishing itself as a serious contender as been named the second Best British Soap. The village soap has gone head to head with BBC's EastEnders on several occasions over the past couple of years & emerged on top, for example:

The Kings River house collapse (13 July, 2006): Emmerdale won in the ratings battle here.
Billy Hopwood, with Victoria Sugden, crashed his truck in to a lake (1 February 2007): Emmerdale won here too, surprisingly since EastEnders episode involved an important storyline involving two of its most high profile characters, Martin & Sonia Fowler, leaving. Emmerdale attracted 8 million viewers with EastEnders gaining 6.5 million viewers.
Emmerdale is notable for being the first television soap opera in the UK to regularly produce six episodes a week, shown every night, except Saturday, at 7pm.

Overseas

Ireland
Emmerdale reaches viewers in the Republic of Ireland via both the widely available UTV from Northern Ireland & TV3 in the Irish Republic. UTV & TV3 screens Emmerdale simultaneously in Northen Ireland & the Repblic of Ireland.

Sweden
Emmerdale has been shown in Sweden since the 1970s – originally on TV2 & since 1994 on commercial channel TV4. Under the title Hem till gården ("Home to the Farm"), the programme is broadcast at 12.25 on Monday to Friday lunchtimes (apart from a regular summer break). The episodes currently being screened (early 2007) date from 2005.

Finland
The programme is shown in Finland on commercial channel MTV3, where it goes out at 17.30 Mondays to Fridays with a repeat of each episode at 10.20 on the following weekday.

New Zealand
TV One in New Zealand shows the programme each weekday lunchtime at 12.30.

Australia
Emmerdale was shown in Australia for the first time in July 2006 when cable television provider Foxtel began screening episodes from 2006 on its UK.TV channel.

Romania
On 2 February 2007 it was announced that Emmerdale would be broadcast on the Romanian free-to-air channel Pro TV. The station has bought 50 episodes of the soap dating back to 2000.

Elsewhere
Satellite channel Granada UKTV is currently showing the programme in the Middle East, Cyprus, & Malta.
Members of the British Forces & their families can watch Emmerdale on BFBS TV1, which is also available free-to-air in the Falkland Islands.

Trivia
The programme's title was changed from Emmerdale Farm to Emmerdale in 1989; in the storyline the village name was changed from Beckindale to Emmerdale in 1994.
All of the main characters in Bottom were avid fans of Emmerdale. When Emmerdale Farm changed its name to Emmerdale, the characters mused that this might be because it shortened the time needed for the audience to read its name, providing the writers with more screen time to fill with story arcs.
In the episode broadcast on 24 July 2006, Val Lambert visits Noreen Bell's house for the first time since Noreen was killed in the blast. She picks up a television magazine turned to the day of the disaster. While most of the schedule is as would normally be expected on a Thursday night, the 7pm slot on ITV1 shows a programme called Castle Bridge rather than Emmerdale. The magazine also schedules The Bill at 8pm, where it would normally be broadcast, however, for this week only, it was actually replaced with PokerFace.
Creskeld hall (Home Farm) is one of the only original filming locations used.

Spin-offs
Several Emmerdale books, fiction & non-fiction, have been produced, a number written by Lance Parkin (who had been a storyliner on the TV show) ans Hugh Miller. At least one of these was also translated into Finnish. There are also several videos including The Dingles Down Under, The Woolpackers & Don't Look Now! - The Dingles in Venice.

The 10 most famous fictional Americans The 10 most famous aliens The 10 Most famous fictional Scottish_people

A map of where different US films & TV programmes blanket across the USA are

A Great index of Comedy & joke sites, 100s of jokes, are 1 click away,

The favourite foods of famous fictional characters

A site stating which animals would be best at football, it is comical, with 2 teams competing, for the prize of the best animal soccer side

A recipe site DELICOUS DISHES

A game where you have to play to win a US style presidential election, if you win you become the president & if you lose you lose, great fun.

A Multimedia Centre for World TV channels, you click on the TV & you get their website or U Tube style TV website

A game where you are the candidate for the leadership of the British Tory Party in 1990, I am not a Tory, but this election was the most exiting election in Britain in the past couple of decades so why not play it

Some great jokes, on many subjects Another page of more & more & The Joke encyclopedia & some more jokes

A site postulating that Neanderthals & animals like them survived to the modern era. I am not saying I believe this, though it is interesting.

Some poems about Zanadu, or Xanadu, including mine