He’s been soapland’s favourite GP for the last 11 years – but did you knowthat Emmerdale star Jonny McPherson has appeared in the show before?
The actor, 43, first appeared as Dr Liam Cavanagh in 2014, but it wasn’t until 2018 that he became a regular face on the ITV soap.
During his time on the programme he’s dealt with Meena Jutla (Paige Sandhu) murdering his daughter, a whirlwind relationship with child killer Ella Forster (Paula Lane) and even survived a plunge into an icy lake.
In upcoming scenes, Chas Dingle (Lucy Pargeter) and Mackenzie Boyd (Lawrence Robb) will find that Liam has been attacked and knocked out.
He ain’t had it easy!
However, there must be something irresistible about the Dales drama for Jonny, as prior to his Liam role, he had three separate guest parts.
Coincidentally, each character had a medical profession.
His first ever TV appearance was as Dr Jonathan Boam, who looked after Donna Windsor (Verity Rushworth) when she was admitted to Hotten General following a car crash.
These two episodes aired in 2008, and it would be another two years before he graced the hospital corridors again.
Jackson Walsh (Marc Silcock) had crashed his van onto a railway line, which was subsequently hit by an oncoming train. He became a quadriplegic, and was attended to by a nurse – also played by Jonny.
Fast forward a year, and Cain Dingle (Jeff Hordley) was attacked and left for dead.
A doctor (you guessed it, played by Jonny) told the Dingle clan that he’d suffered a serious head trauma and required an operation on his leg.
Jonny reprised his role as the unnamed doctor in 2013, when Rhona Goskirk (Zoe Henry) began to cough up blood as a result of her painkiller addiction.
The discovery was recently made by fans on an Emmerdale Facebook group. One fan shared a snap of him fifteen years ago, and wrote: ‘Jonny McPherson on Emmerdale in 2010.’
‘Well I didn’t know that’ replied one viewer.
Another added: ‘Same here there are so many actors in it now that played different people.’
It is a relatively common occurrence for actors to play more than one character in a soap.
An early Emmerdale Farm appearance for Mary Goskirk actress Louise Jameson was recently unearthed.
In 1973, she played Sharon Crossthwaite, a cousin of the Sugdens, who was the first resident to be murdered – harrowing scenes for the time.
Over on Coronation Street, Anthony Schaeffer has played a whopping fifteen parts between 1980 and 2018.
