Corriedale director reveals ‘most stressful’ part of filming ITV’s first soap crossover | Soaps

Veteran Coronation Steet and Emmerdale director Duncan Foster gave Metro and other publications a behind the scenes insight into manning the helm at ITV’s groundbreaking crossover episode Corriedale.

Fans have waited with anticipation for this hourlong clash of the titans where the villagers of Emmerdale and the residents of Weatherfield find themselves on a dark roadside facing a devastating car crash. With over 250 Emmerdale episodes and 350 Corrie credits under his belt, Duncan pulls back the curtain on the hard graft it took to bring the epic stunt to life.

‘I remember standing in this field at 4am. I couldn’t feel my feet, it was cold, everyone was standing around we were looking up at the sky and we could see the stars, and I kept thinking ‘Well, there’s no clouds.’

‘That was the most stressful part of the entire shoot for me, because I just wanted to get the sunrise for the end so we felt the two worlds were going back into their own worlds and it left you with a slightly positive feeling – and wow, when we got it, it was incredible.’

With a star-studded cast, Corriedale gives top billing to legends from both soap worlds including Jack P Shepherd (David Platt), Charity Dingle (Emma Atkins), Carla Connor (Alison King), and of course the iconic Ken Barlow (William Roache) and Eric Pollard (Chris Chittell). Duncan reflects on filming a scene with these two Godfathers of Weatherfield and Emmerdale respectively, and how many takes it took to get it right.

‘I’d love to say it was take one. Because we did different shot sizes on it, it was probably in total five or six takes, and the first cut I saw of the scene, it’d been edited quite tightly, and I said, ‘No, no, no, no, we can’t do that. This is Eric Pollard and Ken Barlow in a scene.

‘This is such an iconic moment. We have to give it every single second of television that we can give it.’ And that’s what we did. So the scene that you see is pretty much as they played it, really’.

While Duncan was tight-lipped on what Ken gets up to in the stunt, he did hint at some tear-jerking moments off camera. ‘I’ve known Bill for over 25 years.’ He explains.

‘He came onto set, he was a little bit emotional, he gave me the biggest hug, and I was, as he was hugging me, I was thinking: “You’ve never hugged me before in 25 years, Bill,” and he was just so thrilled to be in that one scene, and that is one of my favourite scenes.’

The hard work and long hours required to bring Corriedale to life might have been enough to get pulses racing on and offscreen. But Duncan thinks the most stressful part is yet to come – watching the show! He opens up about his first thoughts viewing Corriedale.

‘Nerve-wracking really! When you’ve been so close to something for six months, and you know every line, every moment, every gasp, it’s nerve-wracking.’

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Here’s hoping, soap fans!

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