Emmerdale

2008/9 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Television

Emmerdale
Emmerdale title screen
Format	Soap opera
Created by	Kevin Laffan
Starring	Present cast
Country of origin	United Kingdom
No. of episodes	5009 _{[ +]} (as of Wednesday, 11 June 2008)
Production
Producer(s)	Yorkshire Television (now branded ITV Productions)
Running time	22 minutes (excluding advertisements); 44 minutes on Tuesdays (excluding advertisements)
Broadcast
Original channel	ITV
Picture format	4:3 (1972-2001), 16:9 (2002-present)
Original run	16 October 1972 – present
External links
Official website
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

Emmerdale (known as Emmerdale Farm until November 1989) is an award winning and critically acclaimed British 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, with Keith Richardson serving as Executive Producer since 1986 and Anita Turner as Series Producer from January 2008. Former Emmerdale Series Producer Kathleen Beedles continues to be credited as Series Producer as of January 2008 as the current episodes where produced when she was still Series Producer.

Emmerdale is the third highest-rating soap opera on British television, behind Coronation Street and EastEnders.

The series is produced by Yorkshire Television and broadcast on the ITV network, and was first aired on 16 October 1972. It was originally conceived and 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 Monday to Friday at 19:00 on ITV. Every episode lasts 30 minutes, except the Tuesday edition, which lasts one hour. Repeat episodes and the omnibus of the show can be seen on ITV2.

October 2007 saw Emmerdale celebrate its 35th anniversary in dramatic style with a huge explosion ripping through Annie's Cottage caused by Victoria Sugden pouring petrol over the furniture after demanding to know who had killed her mother Sarah Sugden, seven years previously.

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 and Mary Riordan), rather than, as was the norm in British and American soap operas, being almost totally shot in studios (even 'outdoor' scenes were traditionally filmed indoors). The Riordans pioneered location shooting, with real farm animals, and actors driving tractors. In the 1960s and 1970s, outdoor filming of television programmes using OBUs (Outdoor Broadcast Units) was in its infancy, due to the far higher costs involved, and 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, and the name of their farm was also the name of the show.

Series background

The Miffield estate was the biggest employer in the village of Beckindale - situated 39 miles from Bradford and 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 and 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 drunk away most of the profits, leaving it in a sorry state. It was badly maintained, and the future of the farm looked bleak at the time of Jacob's death on the 10 October 1972.

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

The first episode

The 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 and Beckindale - for London.

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

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

"Matt, who’s she?"

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

The Wilkses 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 and his grandfather Sam Pearson. Emmerdale Farm Ltd was formed after Henry Wilks bought Sam’s share of the estate.

The first episode is available free for UK viewers at ITV.com.

The first episode was shown on Granada Plus on 1st January 2000.

Evolution

Initially the show focused on the farm, and the Sugden family who lived on and 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 November 1989 to Emmerdale, and later the name of the village changed from Beckindale to Emmerdale in 1994 after the infamous plane crash. Coinciding with the soap's 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 and King families taking centre stage in the early to mid 2000s.

Emmerdale Online Channel

On the 21 May 2007 the Emmerdale online channel announced it would be continuing past the Who Killed Tom King? storyline.

Village businesses

Despite being a small village, Emmerdale is a bustling place for business. The current businesses are:

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

Major storylines

Until 1993, Emmerdale was largely ignored by press and viewers alike, in the face of much more well-known soaps such as Coronation Street, EastEnders and Brookside. This, however, was changed when Emmerdale's plane crash storyline brought Emmerdale into the public eye, consequently keeping 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, and, more recently, the murder of Tom King on Christmas Day, 2006.

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 village's hotel, The Falcon, was used to represent the fictional Woolpack Inn. Eventually the location of the shooting location became publicly known, which is perhaps what prompted the move to the village of Esholt in 1976, where it stayed for the next 22 years. This location also became a tourist attraction and the village pub has retained the adopted name of The Woolpack inn.

The original Emmerdale Farm buildings are near the village of Leathley. Creskeld Hall (Home Farm) is one of the few original filming locations used in the entire run of the series and has been involved in many storylines.

From 1998 a purpose-built set on the Harewood estate is used, building on the Harewood estate started in 1996. The first scenes shot in the purpose-built set on the Harewood Estate were broadcast on 17th February 1998, from the front of the Woolpack (although some scenes were shot there from 1997).

The houses in the new village at Harewood are timber framed structures covered in stone cladding. The village is built on green belt land so all the buildings are classed as "temporary structures" and must be demolished within ten years unless new planning permission is given. There is no plan to demolish the set and new planning has now been drawn up. Although no church was built on the Harewood set, there is a churchyard full of gravestones, some of them for the characters who have died in the serial.

Location footage of the fictional market town of Hotten is shot in Otley. The Benton Park School in Rawdon and 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.

A guided tour of all the filming locations from 1972 onwards is available at Emmerdale Behind the Scenes.

Scheduling

When Emmerdale was first broadcast in 1972, it was twice a week in an afternoon slot. It later moved to a 19:00 slot and the number of episodes has steadily increased, with there now being four half-hour episodes and one hour long episode each week.

Popularity

The show is now ranked high in the British popularity stakes, being outdone regularly only by the two major mainstream soaps, Coronation Street and EastEnders.

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

On Monday 24 April 2006 8.5 million viewers watched as Sam Dingle and Alice Wilson got married.
On Monday 25 December 2006 over 7 million viewers watched as Tom King got pushed out of a window and fell to his death on his wedding day to Rosemary Sinclair.

Recent hour-long episodes which have competed with EastEnders have won the battle for viewing figures, establishing itself as a serious contender as the second most popular British Soap. The village soap has gone head to head with BBC's EastEnders on several occasions over the past couple of years and emerged on top.

The Kings River house collapse (13 July, 2006): Emmerdale won in the ratings battle here.

Billy Hopwood, with Victoria Sugden, crashed his truck into 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 and Sonia Fowler, leaving. Emmerdale attracted 8 million viewers with EastEnders gaining 6.5 million viewers.

The Who Killed Tom King? plot came to a close on Thursday 17 May 2007, when the murderer was revealed. Emmerdale gained an average 8.6 million viewers, which peaked to 9.1 million viewers when Tom's son Carl confessed to the murder, between 19:00 and 20:00. EastEnders could manage only 4 million between 19.30 and 20:00.

Overseas

Ireland

Emmerdale reaches viewers in the Republic of Ireland via both the widely available UTV from Northern Ireland and the TV3 Television Network in the Irish Republic. UTV and TV3 screen Emmerdale simultaneously in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

Sweden

Emmerdale has been shown in Sweden since the 1970s – originally on TV2 and 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 2004. Currently TV4 are screening the 17th block of 150 purchased episodes.

Finland

The programme is shown in Finland on commercial channel MTV3, where it goes out at 18.00 Mondays to Fridays with a repeat of each episode at 11.00 on the following weekday.

New Zealand

TV One and TV 2 in New Zealand shows the programme each weekday at 16.00 and early morning 05.05 respectively.

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, and Malta.
Members of the British Forces and their families can watch Emmerdale on BFBS TV1, which is also available free-to-air in the Falkland Islands.
It also currently airs on CBC, mainly channel 6 or 12 across Canada

Opening and closing credits

The original titles were on film and featured a slow panning shot of the Yorkshire dales, before slowly zooming in on Beckindale village/Arncliffe and then the farmhouse. The title caption zoomed out to the camera. The closing credits were on captions and the film underneath was the view from a helicopter of the Dales passing by Arncliffe. The theme, written by Tony Hatch, was performed on the cor anglais with piano and strings accompaniment. The opening titles changed for the 1974 episodes to an aerial panning shot of Arncliffe and a different view of the farmhouse and the font was changed to a bold yellow one. The end credits remained the same but with the different font.

The farmhouse in sunset credits lasted the longest and were introduced in 1976, coinciding with the move to Esholt and the use of videotape for external scenes, and continued to be used until November 1989 when the programme's title was shortened to Emmerdale. This was replaced with a montage of images, shot around Esholt, of various activities such as someone hang-gliding, a Land Rover fording a stream, an oil tanker going over a bridge and someone out horse-riding at Home Farm, the credits rolled over a static shot of the farmhouse. This lasted until 1992 when the theme tune was changed. The credits used from 1992 until December 1993 were similar but used superimposed images the credits rolled over a static shot of some Yorkshire scenery. The opening titles changed again from the plane crash episode in 1993 to one without superimposed images and was in use until November 1994 when some of the scenes were changed and swapped about. From January 1994 until December 1998, the credits rolled over a static shot of Esholt/Emmerdale. The exception to this was during the plane crash when the credits rolled over the destruction of the village.

In December 1998, the opening titles were replaced by another montage, this time of helicopter shots of the Yorkshire moors and farming areas. Superimposed were short scenes of actors (which were not members of the case) performing the various emotions seen in a soap. The closing credits rolled over a continuous shot of Emmerdale, filmed from a helicopter flying away from the village. At the same time, in 1998, a new version of the theme tune was introduced. A grand orchestral theme was introduced over the titles, credits and break bumpers. From September 2004, a different version of the theme, played mainly on the piano, was used for the break bumpers only.

In September 2005, the opening titles were replaced with another helicopter montage, this time marginally slower and without the actors. The closing credits were generic ITV Network style credits over a continuous shot of the village, again from a helicopter, but filmed from a different angle.

Trivia

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 ITV 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 few original filming locations used in the entire run of the series and has been involved in many storylines.

One of the characters was referred to in a skit on the comedy show The Catherine Tate Show. The skit involved the character Joannie Nan Taylor, talking to her grandson Jamie about one of her favourite shows on television.

DVD Releases

Network DVD announced three special DVD Releases were released on October 15, 2007 the releases are below.

The first twenty-six episodes of "Emmerdale Farm Volume 1" from 1972-73 on a four disc set.
"The Best of Emmerdale" twelve of the best episodes taken from 1993-2006 on a two disc set, starting with two episodes covering the plane crash.

The full list for the 'Best of Emmerdale' DVD:

- Episode 1829 – Plane Crash - Part 1
- Episode 1830 – Plane Crash - Part 2
- Episode 1870 – Jack & Sarah’s wedding
- Episode 1875 – Post Office Robbers Caught
- Episode 2473 – Kim Flees Emmerdale
- Episode 2668 – Bus Crash
- Episode 3018 – Nicola Jilts Carlos
- Episode 3215 – Zoe Gets Sectioned
- Episode 3339 – Louise Kills Ray
- Episode 3623/3624 – The Storm
- Episode 4159 – Home Farm is Blown Up
- Episode 4425 – Alice Dingle’s Euthanasia Pact

"Emmerdale 35th Anniversary Edition" is the other two releases together in a box set.

Controversially, for a 35th anniversary set, the years 1974-1993 were totally omitted.

Four more volumes of Emmerdale Farm will be released throughout 2008.

Series producers

David Goddard (October 1972 - January 1973)
Peter Holmans (January 1973 - July 1973)
Robert D Cardona (July 1973 - October 1976)
Michael Glynn (October 1976 - June 1979)
Anne Gibbons (June 1979 - October 1983)
Richard Handford (October 1983 - June 1986)
Michael Russell (June 1986 - March 1988)
Stuart Doughty (March 1988 - December 1991)
Morag Bain (December 1991 - 1993)
Nicholas Prosser (1993 - 1994)
Mervyn Watson (1994 - 1998)
Kieran Roberts (1998 - April 2001)
Steve Frost (April 2001 - 2005)
Kathleen Beedles (2005 - 2008)
Anita Turner (2008 - )

Lists...

List of Emmerdale characters
List of recurring and minor Emmerdale characters
List of past Emmerdale characters
List of births, birthdays, marriages and deaths in Emmerdale
List of residences in Emmerdale
List of Emmerdale spin-offs
List of major storylines in Emmerdale

Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmerdale"