The Emmerdale cast had some sad news to break to fans as they took home their second of four awards at Saturday's British Soap Awards, revealing the death of one of the show's much loved actors, Andy Devine.
There will be some wild celebrations in The Woolpack this week as the ITV soap beat Coronation Street, Doctors, EastEnders and Hollyoaks to take home the big accolade of the night - Best British Soap. There were also wins for Emmerdale legend Mark Charnock, with him accepting Best Dramatic Performance for his portrayal of character Marlon's stroke ordeal and Paige Sandhu, who took home the Leading Performance trophy for being villain Meena.
The second time Emmerdale were on the British Soap Awards winners' rostrum was to accept the honour for Best Family, a new publicly voted category, which was won by The Dingles. And, it was during the speech reacting to the win that the news of the passing of Andy Devine was announced.
READ MORE: British Soap Awards 2022 winners as Phillip Schofield hosts on ITV
Andy was famous to millions of viewers for playing Shadrach, one of the lynch pins of the Dingle clan for years. One of Andy's fellow Dingles and former co-stars James Hooton, who still plays Sam, admitted the cast were stunned to learn that he'd died in January, saying they only found out a few weeks ago.
He told the audience: "We miss and love Andy so much, so this is for him."
Who is your favourite Emmerdale character? Join the conversation in the comments below.
Viewers were puzzled that, given Andy, died in January, he wasn't featured in the Soap Awards' memoriam section alongside the likes of Barbara Windsor and June Brown, with one tweeting: "Good thing the Emmerdale cast remembered Andy Devine cause the @SoapAwards forgot."
Another reacted: "why didn't anyone know that Andy Devine died till 4 months later, and why wasn't he added in the memories section?"
READ NEXT:
