Emmerdale star in ‘emotional goodbye’ as he quits ITV soap to join BBC rival EastEnders
A BELOVED Emmerdale favourite has bid goodbye to the Dales in order to join a soap rival.
The top show storyliner and scriptwriter confirmed that he had made the leap from the Yorkshire based soap in order to instead take up residence in Walford.
Jack Deslandes was one of Emmerdale‘s leading crew members over the last few years before making the epic soap jump.
He confirmed in a lengthy post that his final credits on the show had played out a week ago.
Jack has already been based at EastEnders for the last 4 months but took his final Emmerdale credit’s airing as the chance to look back fondly over his years at the ITV programme.
Writing on his personal blog, Jack discussed his time at the show and his inner conflict of now being a rival to his former place of work.
The writer penned: “Last week, my 144th and final credit rolled over the familiar strings of Emmerdale farm… I’ve been at EastEnders more than four months now so it’s been slightly strange to see the Emmerdale episodes I was working on air from afar.
“It’s like watching an ex finish the marathon they were training for whilst you were together – you’re pleased they’re doing well, but know your new partner might not appreciate you liking their Instagram post.
“But given talking about the stories I worked on whilst I was at Emmerdale was embargoed until transmission, I thought it would be nice to allow myself one post of reflection on my time in the Dales.”
Jack told his blog’s readers that he joined the programme at the height of Paddy Kirk’s mental health crisis which saw him contemplate suicide.
He worked on many of the show’s romance storylines including Charity and Mack’s love triangle with his baby mother, Chloe Harris, as well as Vanessa’s love triangle with Suzy and Mary and Amy and Matty’s recent wedding.
Jack also helped out on Marlon and Rhona’s chaotic marriage in the wake of the emrbyo scandal involving baby Ivy.
Discussing the complexities of his work, Jack added: “From struggling to write a six episode arc on day one to being given sixty scenes to polish up by the end of the day towards the end.
“I learnt how to write fast, how to pitch to that group of writers, who to pitch with, the different roles storyliners took in encouraging conversation in conferences and talk throughs, and what beats I needed to hit to make my producer happy. And I made some great friends and grew confidence in my strengths in building stories.”
He also revealed a behind the scenes soap secret was that the show’s head honcho, Jane Hudson, secretly saw how well a story was doing by how many times it landed on soap magazine covers and beat off it’s other telly rivals.
Jack said that he wished his former Emmerdale pals despite them now being rivals.
He concluded: “My move to EastEnders has been made easier by the toolkit of skills and workflow techniques given to me at Emmerdale and although we’re now rivals in not only ratings but also next month’s BAFTAs, I only wish the team there well and hope there are many more moments of madness and mayhem down on t’ farm.”
Jack’s new role will see the crew member develop EastEnders stories as well as assist and edit scripts of his junior staff.