Director of Emmerdale's Live Episode Revealed
The director of Emmerdale‘s forthcoming live episode has been revealed.
The special episode will mark the 40th anniversary of the Yorkshire based soap and will air on ITV1 in October. The director of the anniversary has been revealed to entertainment & media news site Digital Spy – Tony Prescott will helm the edition.
“The entire live episode is going to be shot on location at the Emmerdale village set in the Yorkshire Dales. We are aware we may be presented with one or two challenges and couldn’t think of a better director to tackle them. We are delighted Tony has agreed to be part of Emmerdale’s 40th celebrations.”- Producer Stuart Blackburn quoted by Digital Spy
The episode will reportedly feature no stunts which may well be a novel thing for Emmerdale. For a small village in the Yorkshire soaps Emmerdale – formerly Beckindale – has sure seen plenty of tragedies over the years with the most memorable being the 1993 Plane Crash (masterminded by Brookside/Hollyoaks creator Phil Redmond). Since that event, which resulted in the village being renamed to Emmerdale, several fires have taken place, numerous car crashes/road accidents, a house collapsed and a gale struck the village in 2003.
The live episode to mark the 40th anniversary follows on from live episodes to mark landmark anniversaries of Coronation Street and EastEnders. The 25th anniversary of EastEnders saw the BBC soap produce its first ever live episode in which the killer of Archie Mitchell (Larry Lamb) was revealed and the character of Bradley Branning (Charlie Clements) was killed off.
Coronation Street‘s most recent live episode was for its 50th anniversary in 2010 which featured the aftermath of the devastating tram-crash. The Granada soap previously celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2000 with a live episode; when Corrie first launched in 1960 all of its episodes were broadcast live. ITV’s now defunct police drama The Bill also featured two special live episodes; in 2003 to mark the 20th anniversary of its original pilot Woodentop and in 2005 to mark the 50th birthday of ITV itself.