Emmerdale's James Hooton praises 'exemplary' safety efforts as filming resumes

James Hooton has praised the "exemplary" efforts to make the \'Emmerdale\' cast and crew "feel safe".

The 46-year-old actor - who plays Sam Dingle on the ITV soap - revealed on Thursday (11.06.20) he\'d been for his induction session to go over the various safety measures in place as filming resumes following a break amid the coronavirus pandemic.

He tweeted: "Just been for my cast members inductions @emmerdale for our new working practices whilst filming.

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"The level of detail and thought put into making our crews feel safe in the workplace is exemplary!

"I hope they aren\'t this stringent for long but I applaud @itv and their efforts! (sic)"

Viewers have been able to keep up with James\' alter ego even with production shut down, as he and his co-star Karen Blick (Lydia Dingle) were the focus of one of the soap\'s lockdown episodes last week.

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Karen recently revealed the cast were able to have an online meeting with a doctor advisor to raise any concerns or worries before they shot the socially-distant scenes.

She said: "We had an online meeting with a doctor advisor first of all and he spoke about the virus and how it spreads and how we can protect ourselves.

"We got the chance to ask questions if we were worried or concerned about coming back to work.

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"That reassured everyone there were to be stringent procedures in place and of course social distancing, and so filming with that in mind is very different. We only had a very small number of people in the studio.

"There were far less people in the space so we could observe social distancing. The big hugs when we all say hi have had to go. It\'s strange having to stand back."