Coronation Street, Eastenders and Emmerdale among soaps set for first ever crossover episode

Three of the biggest UK soap operas will join together for the first ever crossover episodes in 1 November.

Coronation Street, Emmerdale, EastEnders, Casualty, Holby City, Hollyoaks and Doctors will all be involved in a storyline that will focus on climate change.

Instead of all the programmes filming in one space, the shows will use video clips and social media making references to the other hit shows.

A social media video featuring two of Emmerdale’s residents will also be shown to Coronation Street characters, while one of Doctors actors will be shown to Coronation characters.

Casualty will be discussed in The Woolpack and a social media clip from Weatherfield will be talked about in The Queen Vic.

‘You’re going to see all the programmes do a nod to the other’

Announcing the news on This Morning, Soap opera icon, Sharon Marshall, told Holly Willoughby and Philip Schofield: "It’s the first time it’s ever been done. In November, we’re going to be having the world’s first soap crossover. Now for the first time, all five British soaps - and our continuing dramas - they’re all going to come together and tell the same story at the same time. That story is going to be climate change."

Marshall revealed that the filming has been taking place in secret for several months, with each soap filming a scene that will do a nod to the other programmes.

She explained: "All of these people have been talking about it in secret for months and months to make this work and what they’re each going to do is film a scene, have a reference that is going to cover a different aspect of climate change and - this is the fun bit - a soap first.

"You’re going to see all the programmes do a nod to the other and characters will start popping up from one soap in another soap on screen. That has never been done before."

The idea was the brainchild of Emmerdale’s Executive Producer Jane Hudson.

She said: "Never before have all five soaps and both continuing dramas come together and united in telling one story. And we certainly haven’t seen characters pop up in other shows before. This is a real treat for our audience, whilst also allowing us to get across a very important message.”

BBC Studios’ Head of Continuing Drama Kate Oates said: "I’m thrilled that our soaps and serial dramas have all come together to help highlight the issue of climate change amongst our millions of viewers. We’re grateful to the teams that made this happen, and hugely look forward to seeing the talent from our own shows popping up in other iconic programmes.”

Hollyoaks boss Lucy Allan added: "We know how important climate change and environmental issues are to our youthful audience, and to all soap viewers. It has been great to work together on an engaging way to, hopefully, inspire conversations about issues that are so important."

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