A TOP Emmerdale actor has taken a bizarre swipe at the soap on social media.
ITV show veteran Chris Chittell, who plays Eric Pollard, made the unexpected dig during an interaction with a fan on X.
Aldershot-born Chris, 76, started his Emmerdale career in 1986 and is the soap’s longest serving cast member.
Yet he raised eyebrows when he appeared to reference a recent brutal plotline which saw Ethan Anderson beaten in a revenge attack.
It came after Ethan crashed the car he was driving with Nicky Miligan in the passenger seat as they raced into Hotten to save Suni Sharma.
Yet later in the episode, in an unexpected twist, Ethan was then left for dead as he was the victim in a deliberate hit and run.
One fan took to X to remark on what they deemed the “oddball scripts.”
They wrote: “Really odd this Ethan story.
“He’s a man of the law and he’s giving moral highground to his dad?
“How does that work when he’s 100 per cent in the wrong too?
“Then no comment, how can you use the no comment trick with the solicitor next to you?”
Chris was quick to pick up on criticism for the soap and wrote on his account: “Methinks you are being polite!”
The ITV viewer was referring to the plotline which saw the solicitor attempt to swap seats with passenger Nicky when he crashed.
He dragged her lifeless body to the drivers side in an attempt to convince cops she was behind the wheel.
Ethan then confided in his vicar father Charles, who reported him to the police.
All of this came before he was a no-show at Main Street for the village fete, and the hit and run was revealed.
Chris is no stranger to slamming the ITV soap, previously branding the storylines “sensationalist.”
Speaking to the Soap From The Box podcast in 2022, he spoke of the sopa on its 50-year anniversary.
Everything you need to know about Emmerdale
Discussing the changes he experiences he said: “The biggest change is the topic of storylines, they’re all sensationalist, which is a shame.
“We have to look at life and be able to reflect it to do our jobs.
“And life as we see it now, hells bells, you daren’t cough, walk in the street because there’s a death. But life is not like that.”
He added: “I saw a wonderful episode of Coronation Street with Sarah Lancashire and Julie Goodyear in the pub.
“They’d closed up for the night and it was just magical. It was perfect. That’s what’s missing.”
