Emmerdale Farm
1 9 7 2 - Current (UK)
Set in the fictional Yorkshire Dales village of Beckindale, Emmerdale
Farm was originally just shown on Granada and Yorkshire (maybe
Border as well, but who cares?) and actually did involve an actual
farm, with real farming incidents, unlike the present farrago
which seems to have turned into EastEnders with "ey
oop" accents.
After the first series, Yorkshire TV were forced to abandon the
village of Arncliffe in Littondale as their location, as the local
residents were growing fed up with sight-seers.
The show found another village to film in, which they
desperately tried to keep secret, but Esholt, near Bradford
(population 359), is now a bona-fide tourist attraction and
thousands of visitors stop for a drink at The Woolpack - in real
life, The Commercial Inn.
Yorkshire Television had asked playwright Kevin Laffan to write
a 26-part serial to be shown to housewives twice a week at 1.30 in
the afternoon.
Because it was set on a farm with cows and corn centre stage it
could have coasted along as a television version of The Archers,
the long-running BBC radio serial; but Laffan's creation was not
about a nice middle-class family and it was not cosy or
sentimental. He believed soap opera characters could have dignity.
He began with a strong Mother Earth figure, Annie Sugden, based
on tough Yorkshire landladies he had known - Sheila Mercier, Brian
Rix's sister, played her as a woman who devoted her life to
ironing.
Other characters were placid, neither wholly good nor wholly
bad. There was no attempt to glamorise. Where Dallas had
Stetsons and Dynasty had shoulder-pads, Emmerdale Farm
had Ma's pinnies and Matt, a character with less charisma than his
sheep . . .
Laffan's script started with a family funeral (Annie Sugden's husband
) and a bitter row. He fought his own bitter row over it. His
television bosses predicted it would be depressing and a
switch-off, but they were wrong.
It was so successful that critics said it made Coronation
Street seem flashy and Crossroads seem wooden. It was
moved to mid-afternoon and then a high-tea slot by public demand,
so that workers could catch it too. Late night repeats drew larger
audiences in country regions than Match Of The Day.
Les Dawson called it "Dallas with dung", and
in best soap opera tradition, Emmerdale Farm has had
murders, divorces, extra-marital sex, disasters and even the
threat of a nuclear waste dump.
As the soap became a hit some of the stars developed
typecast-phobia. Jo Kendall, who played Annie's daughter Peggy,
wife of Matt, mother of twins, decided to leave. Her death was
arranged, and not long afterwards the two toddlers also met with
fatal accidents.
Andrew Burt, who played the original Jack Sugden, the artistic
elder son, wanted to do other things, so the writers dispatched
him to Rome. Andrew went on to take the lead role in the BBC drama
Warship, which began in 1973.
As soon as he began appearing in his commander's kit on the
bridge, Emmerdale Farm watchers began writing to Annie
Sugden informing her that her boy was not in Rome but in
Portsmouth! But he seemed to have done very well for himself . . .
Emmerdale Farm was renamed Emmerdale in 1989 -
The word 'farm' was dropped to give the show a wider, more
up-to-date appeal. Sheila Mercier (Annie) and Frazer Hines (Joe)
were the only two original cast members to take the show into its
20th season.
But as Emmerdale was sexed up and the action shifted
from the farm to the village, Annie found she was displaced as the
homely yet domineering matron. She ended up in a coma and lost her second husband after a
plane crashed on Emmerdale in 1993.
However, she recovered to enjoy retirement in Spain with
hirsute pub landlord Amos Brearly as the series swapped matriarchs
for ruthless superbitches.
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