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50 free Emmerdale trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Emmerdale began in October 1972 as a twice-weekly lunchtime serial about a Yorkshire farming family, written to last a single short season. Half a century on it is one of Britain's biggest soaps, with a village built on a stately-home estate, a pub that has been blown up, struck by lightning and besieged, and a cast list that has launched a Doctor Who companion, a Strictly champion and a jungle king. These 50 questions cover the show's history, families and sets: the Sugdens, Tates and Dingles, the landlords behind the bar, the plane crash, the storms and the motorway pile-up, the spin-off films, the awards, the international titles and the real villages where the cameras rolled. Each answer comes with a short explanation and a source. It suits long-time viewers, pub quiz setters and anyone who has picked the soap up through the classic repeats. The questions start broad and get harder as you go.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which original Emmerdale Farm cast member had just spent three years as Doctor Who companion Jamie McCrimmon?
Frazer Hines
Frazer Hines played Joe Sugden from 1972 to 1994, and still holds the record for the most Doctor Who episodes of any companion. He quit the farm because he was sick of going to work and coming home in the dark.
Q 02Which future Doctor Who companion made her acting debut as Emmerdale's Jasmine Thomas in 2005?
Jenna Coleman
Jenna Coleman put drama school on the back burner to play Jasmine Thomas for four years, having beaten future co-star Roxanne Pallett to the part.
Q 03Emmerdale's December 1993 plane-crash episode drew complaints for airing near the fifth anniversary of which disaster?
Lockerbie
Lockerbie's fifth anniversary fell on 21 December 1993, nine days before the episode, and ITV received many complaints about the timing. The fictional airliner's death toll was 147.
Q 04Which Emmerdale vet became the first lesbian character in a British soap when she came out in 1993?
Zoe Tate
Zoe Tate was British soap's first lesbian character, and Leah Bracknell played her for 16 years on what began as a nine-month contract.
Q 05Which Emmerdale actor, Jack Sugden's adopted son on screen for 20 years, won Strictly Come Dancing in 2019?
Kelvin Fletcher
Kelvin Fletcher won the seventeenth Strictly with Oti Mabuse three years after leaving the soap, and has since become a farmer for real.
Q 06Emmerdale's purpose-built village set, used since 1997, stands on the estate of which West Yorkshire stately home?
Harewood House
Harewood House, a Capability Brown-landscaped Lascelles seat, has hosted the village since 1997, after two real Yorkshire villages served for the show's first 24 years.
Q 07What title did ITV give the January 2026 one-off that merged Emmerdale with its Manchester-set sister soap?
Corriedale
Corriedale ran for 60 minutes on 5 January 2026 and hinged on a pile-up on a road across the Pennines, an idea boss Iain MacLeod took from his own commute between the two soaps.
Q 08Which Emmerdale character, introduced in 2000 as a hosiery salesman, is the soap's most married with seven weddings?
Bob Hope
Bob Hope has racked up seven marriages to five women, and actor Tony Audenshaw had already appeared in the show once before, as a security guard.
Q 09Whose death was the guarded secret of Emmerdale's first live episode, broadcast for its 40th anniversary in 2012?
Carl King
Carl King died at the hands of love rival Cameron Murray in the hour-long live show of 17 October 2012, which also squeezed in two weddings and two births.
Q 10Which serving Prime Minister formally opened Emmerdale's new purpose-built village set in 1997?
John Major
John Major did the honours as Prime Minister; the production had also spent £2 million converting a four-floor mill at Farsley into its studio centre.
Q 11Which Absolute Beginners star played scheming Sadie King in Emmerdale from 2004 to 2006 and returns in 2026?
Patsy Kensit
Patsy Kensit left Sadie behind for Holby City in 2006, and her 2026 comeback arrives a full 20 years after she was last seen in the village.
Q 12Which actor, Emmerdale's Aaron Dingle, won I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! in 2021?
Danny Miller
Danny Miller won the jungle crown a decade after the first of his three Best Actor wins at the British Soap Awards, and he has said he would have quit acting had he not landed Aaron.
Q 13Which Mandy Dingle actress replaced Jeremy Beadle as host of You've Been Framed! in 1998?
Lisa Riley
Q 21Which Emmerdale vet has married Mandy Dingle twice, in 1999 and again 25 years later in 2024?
Paddy Kirk
Paddy Kirk has walked down the aisle five times in all, his other brides being Emily, Rhona and Chas, and Dominic Brunt has played him since 1997.
Q 22Which Emmerdale hard man, played by Jeff Hordley since 2000, discovered that his 'uncle' Zak was really his father?
Cain Dingle
Cain Dingle also learned he was Debbie's father and fell for his cousin Charity, and Hordley was written out in 2006 only to return in 2009 with the role kept open for him.
Q 23How did Kim Tate leave Emmerdale in January 1999, an exit that won Claire King Best Exit at the British Soap Awards?
By helicopter
Lisa Riley fronted the clip show until 2002, and later finished fifth on both Strictly Come Dancing and I'm a Celebrity before returning to the village for good in 2019.
Q 14Which Emmerdale serial killer, played by Paige Sandhu, topped a 2022 Leeds Live poll of the soap's greatest storylines?
Meena Jutla
Meena Jutla beat the plane crash and the 2016 motorway pile-up in the poll, and Sandhu's nurse, who sang along to pop songs before killing, won Best Villain at the 2021 Inside Soap Awards.
Q 15Which 2001 ITV talent show cast an entire new five-member Emmerdale family, the Calders, who were gone within a year?
Soapstars
Soapstars drew thousands of hopefuls to auditions that began in Sheffield, and the actors' union Equity branded it an insulting affront to working performers.
Q 16Since January 2019, which channel has re-run Emmerdale from its 1972 beginnings under the banner Classic Emmerdale?
ITV3
ITV3 shows ten sequential episodes a week, twice daily, starting from the lunchtime Emmerdale Farm era that critics once dismissed as a sleepy soap where not much happened.
Q 17Which washing powder became Emmerdale's first on-air sponsor in December 1999, holding the slot until February 2002?
Daz
Daz detergent held the slot until February 2002; Heinz later paid £10 million to push ketchup and salad cream around the Dales, and Specsavers took the bumpers in 2024.
Q 18Which Emmerdale actors' trio, with Zak Dingle's Steve Halliwell, hit number five in 1996 cashing in on line dancing?
The Woolpackers
The Woolpackers took 'Hillbilly Rock Hillbilly Roll' to number five in November 1996 and their album Emmer Dance went gold, despite widespread sneering at the country-rock act.
Q 19After Australia in 1997, which Italian city hosted the Dingles in Emmerdale's 1999 direct-to-video spin-off film?
Venice
Venice was the setting for the third of five Emmerdale films, which began with The Dingles Down Under in 1997 and ended with a 2011 big night in.
Q 20Which Emmerdale chef, played by Mark Charnock since 1996, holds the record for the most episode appearances in the show?
Marlon Dingle
Marlon Dingle has clocked more than 3,900 episodes and is the only character to appear in all five spin-off films, and Charnock's stroke storyline earned the 2023 Outstanding Achievement award.
By helicopter was how the 'ultimate survivor' flew off, watched by nearly 15 million, and producer Kieran Roberts said killing her would have been wrong because it signified her triumph over everyone around her.
Q 24In which trade had Frank Tate made his fortune before buying Home Farm with wife Kim in 1989?
Haulage
Haulage was the Tate business, run from Home Farm with Frank's son, and Frank's hour-long 1997 death by heart attack came after Kim faked her own death to frame him.
Q 25Which Home Farm heir, played by Peter Amory, was left paralysed from the waist down by Emmerdale's 1993 plane crash?
Chris Tate
Chris Tate was dug out from under heavy rubble and never walked again, and his resentment fuelled feuds right up to his 2003 suicide, staged to frame his estranged wife Charity.
Q 26On which day of 2006 was Emmerdale's Tom King killed, launching the long-running 'Who Killed Tom King?' whodunnit?
Christmas Day
Christmas Day 2006 was Tom's last, and the 2007 hour-long reveal of his killer drew 8.6 million viewers, more than double EastEnders that night; Kenneth Farrington even returned as Tom's ghost in 2013.
Q 27Which Emmerdale vicar's dementia storyline, played by John Middleton, won Best Storyline at the British Soap Awards?
Ashley Thomas
Ashley Thomas was diagnosed with vascular dementia in 2015 and died on screen a year and a half later, after 21 years, with one special episode shot entirely from his confused point of view.
Q 28Which character, British soap's first asexual regular, was killed in Emmerdale's 50th-anniversary storm in 2022?
Liv Flaherty
Liv Flaherty was crushed by a caravan in the anniversary storm week after Isobel Steele chose to leave for a music career, six years after arriving as Aaron's half-sister.
Q 29Which Woolpack barmaid, played by Sheree Murphy, died when the 2003–04 New Year storm brought the pub's chimney down?
Tricia Dingle
Tricia Dingle had just read her husband's list of 101 things he loved about her and turned back from leaving him when lightning struck the pub; the storm won Spectacular Scene of the Year.
Q 30Emmerdale's 2016 motorway pile-up, Greatest Soap Moment at the 2018 British Soap Awards, was on which fictional road?
The Hotten bypass
The Hotten bypass crash of 2016 killed James Barton, and Hotten itself is filmed in the real market town of Otley.