Emmerdale will celebrate its 50th anniversary with an hour-long Sunday night episode next month, it has been announced. The ITV soap will be marking five decades on our screens this October, after first being broadcast in 1972.
The special episode will air on Sunday, October 16, exactly 50 years to the day since the long-running drama set in the Yorkshire Dales launched. To mark the occasion, the ITV soap has unveiled an official cast photograph, which was taken earlier this year outside the village's Woolpack pub.
The image features everyone in the current cast from the longest-serving cast members to the newest additions, and even the Dingle family dog. Emmerdale has slowly been teasing what viewers can expect from the episodes airing during the month of their landmark anniversary - it has been confirmed that a storm will hit the village.
The show’s executive producer, Jane Hudson, said in August that they want to make the 50th birthday month “a treat for all our loyal viewers” which has them “gripped to the edge of their seats as the stories unfold”. She added that the storylines will “have you in tears, make you laugh out loud and of course, amaze you with some of the most epic stunts you will have ever seen.”
Last month, the soap also released images of cast members Fiona Wade (Priya Kotecha), Chris Bisson (Jai Sharma), Lisa Riley (Mandy Dingle), Mark Charnock (Marlon Dingle), Zoe Henry (Rhona Goskirk), Jay Kontzle (Billy Fletcher), Katherine Dow-Blyton (Harriet Finch) and producers kicking off the 50th celebrations with a huge cake of the iconic Woolpack.
A selection of picturesque photographs of the purpose-built village set on the Harewood Estate in West Yorkshire have also been released on the countdown to the milestone occasion. The ITV programme, previously known as Emmerdale Farm, was originally filmed in the real-life village of Arncliffe in the Yorkshire Dales.
It later moved to Esholt in West Yorkshire and after 22 years the production moved to Harewood Estate where a replica of Esholt was then constructed.
Emmerdale airs weeknights on ITV and ITV Hub from 7.30pm.
