Kevin Laffan
Encyclopedia
Kevin Barry Laffan was an English
playwright
and screenwriter
, best known for creating ITV
soap opera
Emmerdale Farm
. Laffan had undergone heart surgery but two weeks later, he died after suffering a bout of pneumonia
.
Kevin penned 262 episodes of Emmerdale Farm after coming up with the idea in 1972. Laffan stopped writing for the serial after 12 years but remained on as a consultant
. The Soap was based on a town in Yorkshire, called Ammerdale. Laffan, however, was not allowed to name the programme directly after a real place, so subtly altered the name.
Laffan's other big television success was Beryl's Lot
, a British sitcom inspired by the real-life story of the novelist Margaret Powell.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
and screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
, best known for creating ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
soap opera
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...
Emmerdale Farm
Emmerdale
Emmerdale, is a long-running British soap opera set in Emmerdale , a fictional village in the Yorkshire Dales. Created by Kevin Laffan, Emmerdale was first broadcast on 16 October 1972...
. Laffan had undergone heart surgery but two weeks later, he died after suffering a bout of pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
.
Kevin penned 262 episodes of Emmerdale Farm after coming up with the idea in 1972. Laffan stopped writing for the serial after 12 years but remained on as a consultant
Consultant
A consultant is a professional who provides professional or expert advice in a particular area such as management, accountancy, the environment, entertainment, technology, law , human resources, marketing, emergency management, food production, medicine, finance, life management, economics, public...
. The Soap was based on a town in Yorkshire, called Ammerdale. Laffan, however, was not allowed to name the programme directly after a real place, so subtly altered the name.
Laffan's other big television success was Beryl's Lot
Beryl's Lot
Beryl's Lot was a British sitcom about a woman approaching middle-age and embarking on a programme of personal development. It was written by Kevin Laffan, produced by David Cunliffe and Peter Willes, and directed by Derek Bennett and David Reynolds for Yorkshire Television and broadcast on ITV...
, a British sitcom inspired by the real-life story of the novelist Margaret Powell.