Emmerdale viewers were left gobsmacked on Monday, 20 May, as they spotted a familiar face from EastEnders making an appearance on the popular ITV soap.
In a surprising soap crossover, fans were distracted during Monday's episode as new dad Billy Fletcher (Jay Kontzle) struggled to park at the hospital to visit his baby son, Evan, who was recently diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia. Despite his efforts, Billy couldn't get the parking machine to accept his money.
A parking attendant then approached, offering no assistance or sympathy to the clearly distressed new father.
After suggesting Billy use the parking app, the latter was left even more frustrated when he had no signal and the parking attendant failed to provide a Wi-Fi password, causing Billy to lose his temper.
However, viewers were more focused on recognising the actor Ian Gain, who played the unhelpful car park attendant. In a significant soap crossover, Ian has recently been portraying villain Rufus in EastEnders, where he has been organising fights and stirring up trouble for George Knight (Colin Salmon) - who is now suffering a health crisis as a result.
Fans took to Twitter to share their surprise, with one tweeting: "Was that car park attendant on now in @emmerdale, in @bbceastenders last week being the underground boxing organiser ? ? #emmerdale #eastenders".
Another posted: "Err wasn't the parking attendant in Emmerdale today, in Eastenders last week as a boxing host? " while a third added: "Wasn't this car parking guy the same guy who was the fight organiser in #Eastenders?”.
Emmerdale's Ian has made a return to the soap, having previously starred as a doctor back in 2019. His other roles include appearances in Doctors, Casualty, Coronation Street and The Bill.
In Monday's episode, we saw Billy and Dawn Fletcher's (Olivia Bromley) relationship strained due to their son's health issues.
Dawn has been at the hospital with Evan, who is undergoing chemotherapy, while Billy has been juggling being at the hospital and home, taking care of their other two children, Lucas and Clemmie. After a stressful morning and parking issues on Monday, Billy was late for a crucial hospital appointment.
This left Dawn alone to hear that Evan won't need a bone marrow transplant but will still require another two or three years of chemotherapy.
Dawn was livid with Billy for his absence, despite him explaining his parking troubles. This led to a heated argument, after which Billy broke down in tears in the corridor
