The ITV soap’s next big event week will unfold around the wedding of Joe Tate (Ned Porteous) and Dawn Taylor (Olivia Bromley), promising a run of episodes described by producer Laura Shaw as “huge, crazy and wild.”
Emmerdale is known for pulling out all the stops for event weeks, and this storyline is no different. One cast member has reportedly told the interviewer to “think Corriedale,” suggesting the week would be a defining moment for the show and change the course of events afterwards. Laura Shaw has had these episodes in the making for the best part of a year.
“Think Corriedale”
Despite ITV’s battle with budgets, the show will deploy special camerawork, directorial effects and shock stunts to bring a huge set of moments to the arc, which draws in a number of major characters – some expected, some less so.
Speaking at a recent Emmerdale screening, Shaw said: “It starts very much at our story conference and we come up with some absolutely wild ideas. And then lots of people probably go ‘do you know that’s going to cost a million pounds, Laura?’ And we pull it back a little bit, you know!
“We have great ideas and the team here are absolutely brilliant and they’re so great at managing to fulfil whatever crazy wild ideas that we come up with.
“Something like the wedding week, sometimes it can be a year in the planning, and it goes through so many different processes to make it on screen.
“I’ve seen some tiny little snippets that have either been sent from set or that I’ve seen myself when we’ve been out on set.
“I am really, really excited because everybody that’s been working on it just keeps coming up to my office and just keeps saying how fantastic it is and it looks brilliant and everyone has absolutely loved it. So I just know what we’re going to get is going to be magical!”
Exits on the horizon
While the outcomes are unconfirmed and many of the details and twists will catch viewers off guard, several exits have been announced: Nick Miles as Jimmy King, Bradley Johnson as Vinny Dingle, and Dawn herself, the bride. That does not suggest a happily ever after for the couple, especially amid rumours that the exit could be grimly permanent.
Shaw promised that the drama will not stop after the wedding week, teasing that the aftermath and the build-up to Christmas will be just as exciting.
“The boom, boom, booms do not stop”
In an interview with Metro, Shaw teased: “All I can say is that the wedding week is huge and then what follows after, the boom, boom, booms absolutely do not stop.
“Just because of the way that we film, I’ve actually already watched the run of episodes after the wedding and I just sat there and even though I knew what was coming, I kept gasping out loud. There’s so many shocks, there’s so many twists, there’s so many turns.
“At the moment, we’ve just been planning Christmas and new year. I know, who’d have thought it? Trying to get in the Christmas mood in the gorgeous sunshine is not that easy! But we’ve just been planning out Christmas and new year. And everything that we’ve got coming up then as well is absolutely going to be top notch. It’s so exciting!”
