Tony Audenshaw reveals ‘Emmerdale’ will continue with unfinished storylines after the upcoming lockdown episodes.
The 55-year-old soap star – who has played Bob Hope since 2000 – has returned to work following a three month break due to the coronavirus pandemic, and ITV bosses are filming scenes for certain plots which were put on hold when production came to a halt.
Appearing on ITV’s ‘This Morning’ on Friday (05.06.20), he said: "We’re continuing some of the stories we didn’t finish last time [before filming was paused] but also over the next few weeks we’ve got lockdown episodes.
"There are six of them and apparently they’re fantastic to watch."
His comments come after ‘Emmerdale’ bosses confirmed the soap began a phased return to socially distanced filming last week with a reduced cast, who were shooting new episodes about characters in lockdown to ensure the programme doesn’t run out of episodes during the crisis.
The two episodes a week – which will feature characters Cain and Aaron (Jeff Hordley and Danny Miller), Chas and Paddy (Lucy Pargeter and Dominic Brunt), Sam and Lydia (James Hooton and Karen Blick), Marlon, Al and Ellis (Mark Charnock, Michael Wildman and Aaron Anthony), Mandy and Vinny (Lisa Riley and Bradley Johnson), and Jimmy and Nicola (Nick Miles and Nicola Wheeler) – will air on Mondays and Wednesdays from June 8th at 7pm on ITV for three weeks, and then ‘Emmerdale’ will resume broadcasting three episodes per week, as they have been during lockdown.
Tony explained how the crew are sticking to social distancing measures and praised everyone for making the set "workable".
He added: "We’ve had an induction. Each set has been broken into different areas – I’m in the red cohort at the moment. I’ve got my lanyard on!
"They have done a fantastic job in making this workable… they’ve thought of hopefully everything."