Soap is all about pushing boundaries, and finding fresh, exciting ways to tell stories that strike a chord with the audience – and Coronation Street has its finger on the pulse.
Just last month, the soap courted controversy by airing a shocking scene where child abuser Megan Walsh (Beth Nixon), lured underage teenager Will Driscoll (Lucas Hodgson-Wale) into bed as part of a hard-hitting sexual abuse storyline.
Also in December, Todd Grimshaw’s (Gareth Pierce) domestic violence nightmare reached a horrifying climax in a special episode told from the perspective of secret cameras, RING doorbell footage and police bodycams, giving viewers an unflinchingly raw snapshot of what it must be like to live with an abuser.
Now Coronation Street is turning its tried-and-true soap format upside down once again with an upcoming special episode feature the death of one beloved character. Executive Kate Brooks lays out Corrie’s novel approach to a whodunnit.
‘There’s a special episode coming up mid-February and in that episode we’re doing a bit of a flash-forward ep. I know it’s been done recently on another show but this is something that’s been in the making for a really long time. The big stories we have on the table, it gives us a destination for those big stories to all come together and be involved in a much bigger storyline.’
‘During the course of the flash-flash-forward episode we discover that one of our characters has found a dead body on the street. We don’t know who it is. There are five potential victims and we’ll take the audience on a journey for them to try and figure out who that body is and what happened, what’s the back-story to it and how did it get to that place, why did that person die.
‘It’s really hard to sell the story without giving too much away. It’s very complicated and very intricate but essentially what we’re playing is a ‘who is it?’ story where we don’t know who died and what the situation is around the death but it will give the stories that are currently running a destination point as we try to figure out which person has met an untimely demise. We’ll reveal that there are five potential victims.’
This is will not be the last time Corrie thinks outside the box. Kate gives us a taste of what’s to come on the Cobbles in 2026, hinting that there’s even more special episodes in the pipeline.
‘I can’t say much but yes, we do. We do have episodes that feel special and different and break the usual formula of soap. I think they’re really interesting ways of telling the story. We have a lot of episodes a year, a lot in our traditional format to appease the more traditional viewers.
‘So I think when the story affords it and we can take a more abstract and unconventional approach, we embrace it and we do it really well. We have a great team around us who work really hard to ensure that while the episode might feel different or is non-linear in its storytelling or has a whole different approach to it, it still feels very story-driven. I think that’s the key to making these episodes a success.’
For the record, this author agrees. In the era of Netflix dramas and cosy crime on demand, soap bosses have to get creative to compete with hundreds of gripping shows available at the click of a button. As a Hollyoaks veteran myself, I can confirm that the art of soap opera is often about walking that tightrope between growing state and predictable while not veering off into fantasy land – being bold but grounded.
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Kate Brooks defends her decision to take risks, citing the success of Todd’s hard-to-watch abusive relationship ordeal as a reason to keep pushing that envelope.
‘If you take the Todd/Theo episode as an example, you can’t get more kitchen sink drama than being in somebody’s living room watching them live their lives. That’s taking it right back to day dot. That’s the reality of it. Whether we’re shooting it through the lens of cameras or not, it allowed us to explore that and take our time with it.
‘That’s what we’ll continue to do going forward, taking the big storylines that we have and trying to tell them in fresh ways, innovative ways that make people go, ‘That was a different way of telling that story.’
‘Initially they might not always love it, but I think it’s a risk we should take and continue to take because we need to keep abreast of the competition and we need to make sure it’s relevant and we stay fresh and new, while never losing the DNA of what makes Corrie so brilliant – and that is our strong women, which we have in abundance, our friendships, the community, the pub being the heart of that street.
‘We’re never going to lose that but we can absolutely push those boundaries and tell stories that are very relatable to real life but tell them in ways that make people stop and think and go, ‘OK, that’s made me look at it in a whole different new light.’
