Matthew Wolfenden as David Metcalfe in Emmerdale / © ITV
Matthew Wolfenden has admitted that he took a huge gamble when he decided to quit his role as David Metcalfe on Emmerdale after 17 years.
The character departed the Dales in November 2023 after making the devastating discovery that his son Jacob (Joe-Warren Plant) was having an affair with his ex-girlfriend Victoria (Isabel Hodgins).
Wolfenden decided to leave the soap after being offered the lead role in a West End production of Elf: The Musical, a job that would have otherwise been prohibited under Emmerdale‘s strict rules on other work.
“The problem is they don’t let people out at Christmas to do panto, because their reasoning is if we left one person out, we’ve got to open it up to everyone and we could lose half our cast at Christmas,” he told The Sun.
“Not that Elf was a pantomime, it was a big West End musical, but it was over panto season and they said ‘if we set a precedent to let you out for three months to do that we’ve got to let other people out too’. And I absolutely understood that.
“My contract was coming to an end and I had this big decision to make, do I leave an 18 year job to do an eight-week show? When you look back, in hindsight, to leave a well paid job to go and do an eight week run is a little crazy. I’m 44 now, I was 43 at the time and I thought ‘if I don’t do it now then I’ll never do it’.”
Wolfenden went on to admit that he is open to returning to the role at some point in future.
“Luckily, John Whiston, the big boss at Emmerdale, wrote me a lovely email saying ‘Look, we’re not going to kill you off that is not me saying you can come back’, obviously they can’t say that, but the door will be left open for the character of David, which was very nice,” he said.
“It does give you that option. You never know, I might go knocking on the door and say ‘can I come back please?’ It’s such a great place to work. It’s on my doorstep and it’s a great place to work and the people are fantastic.”
Wolfenden was most recently seen starring in Channel 5’s The Good Ship Murder.
