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Daily Mirror
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Emmerdale's Matthew Wolfenden breaks silence on bitter 'race row' and suspension
Matthew Wolfenden has spoken for the first time about being suspended from his role on ITV's Emmerdale after appearing to mimic a Chinese accent on the set Emmerdale actor Matthew Wolfenden has revealed why he was suspended from the ITV soap opera and how it saw him suffer a nervous breakdown. The actor who plays local businessman David Metcalfe vanished from screens in 2021 alongside his co-star, Isabel Hodgins, who plays Victoria Sugden, leaving fans baffled. At the time, it was reported that the pair had been embroiled in a heated row while filming scenes for Super Soap Week in the same year. Reports claimed that the pair came to blows while filming a scene which involved a waterfall, which aired on October 19, 2021. However, it later emerged that the soap had launched an investigation following claims of a race row. But until now, Matthew, 45, has remained tight-lipped about his exit from the soap and has confirmed it came after they were accused of mimicking a Chinese accent around the workplace."We were falsely accused of doing an accent on set," he said. Matthew went on to explain: "Whenever the word race is used, they have to take it seriously." He explained that a young cast member had mistakenly thought they'd heard the pair putting on a Chinese accent and later complained to a producer about the incident. He stated that the younger cast member told a producer they were "not very happy" about what they had heard on the set of the Yorkshire-based soap opera. "So, because of this, we did have to get suspended because as soon as that's an issue, they have to go down the correct routes while they investigate what happens," Matthew said. Speaking on Lewis Nicholls Life Stories, he went on to say: "Unfortunately when you get suspended from a continuing drama, you have to get written out of storylines and that is not an easy process because the storylines are written six weeks in advance, you film six weeks in advance and then it's on screen. "So even if you're off for two weeks that could be three months of not being on screen." He said that he and Isabel had worked together a lot in the lead up to the suspension due to their characters being in a relationship and the pair loved watching comedies. "So we were sat one day talking about what comedies we loved to watch and we were doing scenes, mimicking the scenes, doing the lines from the scenes," he said. He went on to add: "And I said to her, 'Have you ever seen the League of Gentlemen?' "And there's a scene in the League of Gentlemen where Reece Shearsmith dresses up as a lady called Pam Doove and it's called the Orange Juice Scene if anyone wants to Google it and see what I mean. And he's playing an actress who comes into an audition room and is very eloquent - it's an old acting joke - and then the director says, 'Go out of the room and come back in and say 'Has anyone got a bottle of orange juice?' for an audition. [She returns and does it in a different accent]. " He stated that the younger star had overheard the conversation and assumed that Matthew was mimicking the Chinese accent, which led to him being suspended over the alleged "race row". Matthew claims that bosses behind the soap urged him not to speak out publicly about the reason behind his suspension. He told the podcast he "didn't have a leg to stand on" as the Emmerdale press team had instructed him to "stay quiet." Despite this, Matthew stated he was desperate to tell the truth and found it "difficult" not to speak out over an accusation of something he hadn't done. He later explained he became unwell due to the mounting stress and suffered a nervous breakdown. "I ended up in The Priory for a month," he said. Matthew feared he'd lose his job and ended up hitting a "big spiral down" following the rumours. Despite his suspension, Matthew returned to the programme, but fortunately for him, the cast member who made the claim left while he was absent. Matthew's character eventually left Emmerdale in 2023 after two decades on the soap. It was initially suggested that David could be killed off after Matthew expressed an interest in taking on other roles. However, David didn't die and he instead left to be with his ex Priya and their daughter Amba after learning that his son Jacob had fallen for his former partner Victoria. He couldn't cope with the new romance and decided he had no choice but to make his departure from the Dales, leaving both Jacob and Pollard devastated. The Mirror approached Emmerdale for comment.
Scottish Sun
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scottish Sun
Emmerdale star Matthew Wolfenden breaks silence over soap race row and confirms why he was suspended
FORMER Emmerdale star Matthew Wolfenden has broken his silence about the soap's race row and finally revealed the truth behind it. The David Metcalfe actor and co-star Isabel Hodgins - who plays Victoria Sugden in the ITV soap - disappeared from screens in 2021 after it was revealed a complaint had been made about them. Sign up for the Entertainment newsletter Sign up 2 Matthew Wolfenden has broken his silence over the Emmerdale race row that saw him suspended in 2021 Credit: Getty 2 Matthew and Isabel were both away from filming for months in the end Credit: ITV At the time Emmerdale denied the pair had been suspended, but now four years on, Matthew has revealed the truth of what happened revealing they were 'mistakenly' accused of doing a Chinese accent. Speaking for the first time about it, he said: 'We were falsely accused of doing an accent on set. 'Whenever the word race is used they have to take it seriously. So a young cast member mistakenly thought he heard us doing a Chinese accent, so he went up to see the producer and said, 'I'm not very happy about this, I think I've just heard them mimicking a Chinese accent so because of this we did have to get suspended because as soon as that's an issue they have to go down the correct routes while they investigate what happens. 'Unfortunately when you get suspended from a continuing drama, you have to get written out of storylines and that is not an easy process because the storylines are written six weeks in advance, you film six weeks in advance and then it's on screen. 'So even if you're off for two weeks that could be three months of not being on screen. 'Basically what had happened was me and Izzy were working lots together at the time because were were in a relationship [on screen] and we loved watching comedies. 'So we were sat one day talking about what comedies we loved to watch and we were doing scenes, mimicking the scenes, doing the lines from the scenes. 'And I said to her, 'Have you ever seen the League of Gentlemen?' And there's a scene in the League of Gentlemen where Reece Shearsmith dresses up as a lady called Pam Doove and it's called the Orange Juice Scene if anyone wants to Google it and see what I mean. 'And he's playing an actress who comes into an audition room and is very eloquent - it's an old acting joke - and then the director says, 'Go out of the room and come back in and say 'Has anyone got a bottle of orange juice?' for an audition. [She returns and does it in a different accent]. 'So we were doing this in the accent that you heard me do and this young kid thought that was us doing a Chinese accent and wasn't happy about it so he went and complained and that led to us being suspended, it led to all this stuff going in the press with the word 'race' and 'race row'.' Matthew Wolfenden breaks down in tears on This Morning over Emmerdale exit after playing David for 18 years Matthew claimed he was told by bosses not to speak out and explain what happened, and the situation left him vulnerable and saw him checked into a mental health clinic. He added on podcast The Lewis Nichollls Show: 'I didn't have a leg to stand on because the press team at Emmerdale just said to stay quiet. 'All I wanted to do was tell my truth and tell that story and I was kind of told not to. And that was difficult because I was being accused of something that I hadn't done. 'It was hard and I got very very poorly and had a nervous breakdown. I ended up having a nervous breakdown and I ended up in the priory for a month.' He added: 'I thought I was going to lose my job over this over something I haven't done. 'I've always struggled with my mental health so just ended up with this big spiral down and ended up having a nervous breakdown. I had to be taken into the Priory for a month to get better.' Matthew, who later quit the soap in 2023, added: 'It was just a horrible, horrible time. It was a difficult couple of years to me.' He also revealed that he would have struggled to speak to the cast member who made the allegation - but fortunately they left the show during his absence. The actor said: 'That person [who made the allegation] had left the show before I started back which in hindsight yeah, it would've been difficult to go back and be face to face with the person who accused you absolutely wrongly. 'I think there's certain ways of approaching that conversation instead of going straight to the boss… where we would have to be suspended on that accusation. Soap stars leaving this year Soap has - or will lose some iconic characters this year - here we've rounded up the latest departures... EASTENDERS Navin Chowdhry CORONATION STREET Calum Lill Bill Fellows Launa Santos Helen Worth Lucy Fallon HOLLYOAKS Matthew James Bailey Gregory Finnegan Stephanie Warring Annie Wallace NEIGHBOURS Ryan Maloney Lucinda Cowden 'It was a tough pill to swallow.' Emmerdale has been contacted for comment.
The Irish Sun
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Irish Sun
Emmerdale star Matthew Wolfenden breaks silence over soap race row and confirms why he was suspended
FORMER Emmerdale star Matthew Wolfenden has broken his silence about the soap's race row and finally revealed the truth behind it. The David Metcalfe actor and co-star 2 Matthew Wolfenden has broken his silence over the Emmerdale race row that saw him suspended in 2021 Credit: Getty 2 Matthew and Isabel were both away from filming for months in the end Credit: ITV At the time Emmerdale denied the pair had been suspended, but now four years on, Matthew has revealed the truth of what happened revealing they were 'mistakenly' accused of doing a Chinese accent. Speaking for the first time about it, he said: 'We were falsely accused of doing an accent on set. 'Whenever the word race is used they have to take it seriously. So a young cast member mistakenly thought he heard us doing a Chinese accent, so he went up to see the producer and said, 'I'm not very happy about this, I think I've just heard them mimicking a Chinese accent so because of this we did have to get suspended because as soon as that's an issue they have to go down the correct routes while they investigate what happens. 'Unfortunately when you get suspended from a continuing drama, you have to get written out of storylines and that is not an easy process because the storylines are written six weeks in advance, you film six weeks in advance and then it's on screen. Read more on Emmerdale 'So even if you're off for two weeks that could be three months of not being on screen. 'Basically what had happened was me and Izzy were working lots together at the time because were were in a relationship [on screen] and we loved watching comedies. 'So we were sat one day talking about what comedies we loved to watch and we were doing scenes, mimicking the scenes, doing the lines from the scenes. 'And I said to her, 'Have you ever seen the League of Gentlemen?' And there's a scene in the League of Gentlemen where Reece Shearsmith dresses up as a lady called Pam Doove and it's called the Orange Juice Scene if anyone wants to Google it and see what I mean. Most read in Soaps 'And he's playing an actress who comes into an audition room and is very eloquent - it's an old acting joke - and then the director says, 'Go out of the room and come back in and say 'Has anyone got a bottle of orange juice?' for an audition. [She returns and does it in a different accent]. 'So we were doing this in the accent that you heard me do and this young kid thought that was us doing a Chinese accent and wasn't happy about it so he went and complained and that led to us being suspended, it led to all this stuff going in the press with the word 'race' and 'race row'.' Matthew Wolfenden breaks down in tears on This Morning over Emmerdale exit after playing David for 18 years Matthew claimed he was told by bosses not to speak out and explain what happened, and the situation left him vulnerable and saw him checked into a mental health clinic. He added on podcast 'All I wanted to do was tell my truth and tell that story and I was kind of told not to. And that was difficult because I was being accused of something that I hadn't done. 'It was hard and I got very very poorly and had a nervous breakdown. I ended up having a nervous breakdown and I ended up in the priory for a month.' He added: 'I thought I was going to lose my job over this over something I haven't done. 'I've always struggled with my mental health so just ended up with this big spiral down and ended up having a nervous breakdown. I had to be taken into the Priory for a month to get better.' Matthew, who later He also revealed that he would have struggled to speak to the cast member who made the allegation - but fortunately they left the show during his absence. The actor said: 'That person [who made the allegation] had left the show before 'I think there's certain ways of approaching that conversation instead of going straight to the boss… where we would have to be suspended on that accusation. Soap stars leaving this year Soap has - or will lose some iconic characters this year - here we've rounded up the latest departures... EASTENDERS Navin Chowdhry CORONATION STREET Calum Lill Bill Fellows Launa Santos Helen Worth Lucy Fallon HOLLYOAKS Matthew James Bailey Gregory Finnegan Stephanie Warring Annie Wallace NEIGHBOURS Ryan Maloney Lucinda Cowden 'It was a tough pill to swallow.' Emmerdale has been contacted for comment.
The Guardian
02-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Pierre Novellie: the 10 funniest things I have ever seen (on the internet)
One of the toughest things about being a comedian or comedy writer these days is just how much amazing stuff exists out there in the wild. Feral jokes roaming the jungle of the internet, free to view, shared everywhere, completely uncredited, disappearing as quickly as they appeared. So many of my choices were deleted when I returned to the jungle clearing where I first spotted them. The loss of the baffling German voiceover actor used for the outdoor-lights-bundle product video embedded in an Amazon page is a particularly galling one. Was it a dream? The internet has proven that everyone can be the funniest person on Earth once in their lives and comedians and comedy writers are often less funny but more consistent. Here is a mixture of both types. Brian 'Limmy' Limond is one of the best British comedy writers and performers of the century and he's never got the exposure he deserves, I think because English television executives didn't think anyone would understand Scottish accents. His sketches are incredible but these days he Twitch streams and occasionally improvises mad stories from suggestions or simply off the top of his head in the middle of a game. This one is a favourite for my friends and I. Whenever a celebrity or politician gets in more trouble after apologising than before, we remember: don't back doon, double doon. This article includes content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click 'Allow and continue'. I have no real understanding of why Kim Cattrall is doing this or who with and I do not wish to know. I was so dumbstruck by it when first seeing it I had to let it loop several times before the enormous reserve of laughter it created could be released from my chest. For weeks, I would make my girlfriend jump by suddenly saying 'saba sooRAY!' to myself, unprompted. Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning This article includes content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click 'Allow and continue'. These two geniuses are producing some of the best sketches I've ever seen. The Gordon Ramsay one, the Home Alone one, too many gems to name. To introduce you to their work I think it's best if I show you one of their big hitters, a sketch about forgetting your headphones. Their work straddles the mundane and the obscene and surreal in a way that I think is generally done best by northern English comedians (for example Vic and Bob, the League of Gentlemen), and their mixture of fully committing to characters and undermining their own premises makes me honk. One of the stupidest jokes ever and it made me cry with laughter for two days. A work of art. Trying to explain why this is incredibly funny is like trying to explain picnics: the more you say, the stupider it all sounds. This article includes content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click 'Allow and continue'. When an impression is good, it is funny; when an impression is really good, it is also horrible. From the mixture of regional accents carefully matched to each other, to the upstairs-downstairs class system faux bonhomie, this has everything that makes so much British theatre (and indeed cinema) utterly intolerable outside of a drunken Christmastime viewing. The Monty Python aspect to the voices is both excessively silly and chillingly real. The comedian Alex Kealy and I lived together one Edinburgh fringe. We had both seen this video a long time before but all it took was merely for him to ask if I had seen it and we were both crying-laughing again. He didn't even finish the question due to laughter and he didn't need to, all I needed to hear was 'Have you seen the Egyptian priest?' and I was gone. Dead. Sign up to Saved for Later Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips after newsletter promotion This article includes content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click 'Allow and continue'. There are a lot of videos where people have removed backing tracks or laugh tracks. Friends without a laugh track is a nasty, baffling Godot-style play. Star Wars without the soaring music is awkward and creepy. This one stuck with me because it builds perfectly. Every new thing about Elvis having no back-up music is funnier than the previous thing until the final hilarious crescendo. It is also a perfect impression of the awful half-singing people do quietly while they are in public. This article includes content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click 'Allow and continue'. Another perfect sketch! One of the few truly original takes along the lines of 'imagine superheroes but real'. The downplayed but still gobsmacked reactions are perfect , as well as the cheesy, wholesome offscreen voice of Spider-Man himself. Great sketches are often great observational comedy played out, and this is no exception. Most of this is not available for free, but it's such a comedy ray of sunshine that beams straight into the core of your brain, I can't not recommend it. The Americans will always do two things better than the rest of the world: improv and game shows. Sam Reich embodies both, and hosts the show with a genial mischief that makes you want to have him host or narrate everything you do in life from now on. I also got the chance to meet him at the Edinburgh Fringe and he was so shocked I knew who he was he must also be a good person. People in films are always telling each other that they look like shit, and it's just shrugged off. I would be jarringly upset for days Johnny White Really-Really is the comedy act I have most recommended in my life. I recommend him to the point that I imagine he finds unsettling by now, having long since ceased to be flattered. His tweets make me laugh a lot but I think you need to listen to the specials of the man to understand the tweets. Most of them are available for streaming and some on Bandcamp. In one show he asks, apropos of nothing, 'have you ever accidentally stroked your dad's hand while you're both stroking the same dog?' I would also add that he is one of the only comedians whose shows work just as well as prose as they do onstage. There is no one doing it like him – his specials don't even have audiences so you don't get prompted to laugh by rhythm and mob psychology. You have to actually listen. Pierre Novellie: Must We? is on at the Westin as part of Melbourne International Comedy Festival until 18 April
