Ex-EastEnders star is returning to the world of soaps, but has swapped Albert Square for the Yorkshire Dales.
Joe Absolom has been announced to be joining the cast of ITV series Emmerdale, 25 years after leaving EastEnders.
The actor, 46, played Matthew Rose in the BBC soap from 1997 to 2000. His biggest storyline saw him framed for the murder of his girlfriend Saskia Duncan (Deborah Sheridan-Taylor) by nightclub owner Steve Owen (Martin Kemp).
Absolom said of his new appointment: “Well, what an honour to join such a talented team at Emmerdale. It’s an iconic show and I’m grateful to be part of it.”
He will play Ray, a new arrival who will have a “calm and collected exterior” with a hidden “menacing streak”.
Emmerdale producer Laura Shaw said: “We are thrilled to welcome Joe Absolom to the cast. It’s fantastic to have such a high-calibre and immensely talented actor join our wonderful team to play the role of Ray.
“Charming, charismatic and effortlessly likeable, Ray is an extremely complex character who very quickly shows his dark and villainous side to some of our most loved villagers, leaving them in no doubt as to what he’s capable of.”
Absolom also starred in Code of Silence as well as Doc Martin, in which he played Al Large from 2004 to 2022.
It was recently announced by ITV that soaps Coronation Street and Emmerdale will crossover in an episode set to be aired in 2026.
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This historic hour-long episode will unite the residents of Weatherfield and the Dales, kicking off the new year for both shows.
The occasion will be marked by “an ambitious stunt” that will have “everlasting consequences for everyone involved”. The consequences of the drama will link the two communities forever, as familiar faces depart and new arrivals stir the pot.
This is not the first time there has ever been a soap crossover, but it is the first of this scale.
The Channel 4 series Hollyoaks and Brookside repeatedly made cross-show references. In 2010, Children in Need aired a charity crossover between the stars of EastEnders and Coronation Street, titled “East Street”.
More officially, there was a week-long series of soaps crossovers back in November 2021 when characters in Casualty, EastEnders, Emmerdale, Hollyoaks, Coronation Street, Doctors and Holby City made references to each other.
In that episode, Coronation Street characters only watched a social media video featuring two of Emmerdale’s residents but this episode promises a much more tangled drama between ITV’s most beloved soap stars.
Following the crossover, Coronation Street and Emmerdale will return to their new airing schedule for 2026.
