Coronation Street boss Iain Macleod said the move to stage a major ‘cinematic’ disaster was a way of celebrating the end of the pandemic
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Image: ITV)
Coronation Street bosses are to stage a disaster so massive it will rival the tram crash which rocked Weatherfield in 2010 – leaving one regular dead.
The grand-scale stunt will see a return of the sinkhole that appeared in the Platts’ back garden a year ago.
As she celebrated Corrie being named best soap at the National TV Awards, actress Sally Carman, who plays Abi Franklin, declared: “It’s going to be so big it will rival the tram crash. You’re going to have your socks blown off.”
Show boss Iain Macleod said the move to stage a major “cinematic” disaster was a way of celebrating the end of the pandemic.
Coronation Street bosses are to stage a disaster so massive it will rival the tram crash which rocked Weatherfield in 2010
He compared the plot to Chekhov’s gun – a dramatic principle that states that every element in a story must be necessary.
“We don’t have Chekhov’s gun in our stories but we do have Chekhov’s sinkhole. We’ve tried to look at the last 12 months and the limited way in which all soaps have been forced to tell their stories, and try to subvert that and go ‘we’re back’.
Show boss Iain Macleod said the move to stage a major “cinematic” disaster was a way of celebrating the end of the pandemic
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Image:
PA)
“It’s going to be really huge – there’s loads of emotion, there’s loads of big spectacle – it’s going to be cinematic.“
It’s a statement of intent that we wanted, as a show, to put out there – to make something we couldn’t possibly have made in the past 18 months because the pandemic wouldn’t allow it.
But we’re back now, our team is the best in the business and we can do it and we’re going to do it and it’s going to be incredibly impressive.”
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He said the sinkhole’s return would leave one character dead. “When you do a story of a certain scale and at a certain level of spectacle the viewers expect there to be significant aftermath to it and significant outcomes.
“So yes, I can confirm that Chekhov’s sinkhole will result in a death.”
Celebrating the soap’s hat-trick of gongs at the National TV Awards, he said: “Our team are the hardest working, most talented, most dedicated people in the business.
Coronation Street won three awards at this year’s National Television Awards
“Making soaps is hard anyway but doing it while there is a deadly virus out there is even harder and what we are doing now, the episodes around the sinkhole, are testament to how incredibly indefatigable our production team, our writers and our actors are.
“Tonight has been a really proud moment for all of us,” he added.
The tram crash, which killed three characters including Ashley Peacock and Molly Dobbs, was to celebrate the soap’s 50th anniversary in 2010.