Emmerdale favourite Danny Miller has cheekily admitted to swiping a memorable prop from the iconic ITV soap set—proving that even soap stars can’t resist a souvenir.
Speaking on the latest episode of the Off Script podcast, hosted by his former Emmerdale co-star Kelvin Fletcher, Danny shared the hilarious story behind his sneaky heist. “I had me eye on this parasol—it was outside The Woolpack—for a while,” he confessed. “And I saw my chance.” But pulling off the mission wasn’t exactly easy. “I had this tiny little car, I mean, it was one of them where you can just about roll the seat back and then you’re sort of sat on someone’s lap,” he laughed, recalling the struggle to squeeze the large item into his compact vehicle. Despite the logistical nightmare, the parasol now has pride of place at home—a light-hearted reminder of his time on the Dales.
“I thought, ‘I’ve got to go for it’, so, this parasol – on set, [branded] with Ephraim Monk, which is their lager, if you didn’t know – in this tiny car.
“So I had to wind the passenger window down, back on the M62, this Ephraim Monk thing going ‘t-t-t-t-t-t-t’ as I was driving, I’m driving, every two minutes slapping me in the head.”
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The actor, who has played Aaron Dingle since 2008 (with a break or two along the way), went on to explain what happened next.
He said: “[I was] thinking it’d be worth it, and then one of me mates – I think it was Adam Thomas, who plays Adam Barton – he basically looked at the window and went, ‘Is that from work?’ and I went, ‘Yeah, yeah’.
ITV
“He went: ‘Hey, that is so sad’. I took it down. I went back into work, I remember, I think a couple of weeks later, I was on a tea break and walked past and they were prop checking and went: ‘Sure we’re missing a parasol.'”
Elsewhere in the interview, Danny revealed a nasty injury that forced the writers to change one of his return storylines.
Emmerdale airs on weeknights at 7.30pm on ITV1, and streams on ITVX. Off Script is available on ITVX.