The dust has barely settled from Corriedale, ITV’s epic soap crossover spectacular where Coronation Street’s beloved tortured vicar Billy Mayhew (Daniel Brocklebank) died in a devastating car crash. Now the grim reaper’s coming to the Cobbles once again to claim the life of one unlucky resident, with a shocking death that will impact Weatherfield’s favourite families.
Executive producer Kate Brooks lifts the lid on the explosive turn of events that will see one character killed off during a special flash-forward episode.
‘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.’
The Street is no stranger to outside-the-box storytelling.
In December, they released a special episode with a “found footage” feel told entirely from the perspective of cameras, RING doorbell footage, and police bodycams to highlight Todd Grimshaw’s (Gareth Pierce) domestic abuse ordeal at the hands of his toxic parter Theo Silverton (James Cartwright).
Not only that, but they turned back the clocks in a Christmas flashback episode where viewers met a younger Maggie Driscoll (Pauline McLynn), the formidable landlady of the Rover’s Return, and got an eye-opening glimpse into her dark backstory.
While Hollyoaks, Eastenders and Emmerdale have all experimented with their own version of the flash-forward, now it’s Coronation Street’s turn to ride the time machine.
Kate Brooks explains how the classic soap device will be used to kickstart a compelling murder mystery that sends shockwaves through Weatherfield’s biggest clans.
‘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.’
Who’s in the body bag? It’s hard to say. There’s certainly no shortage of baddies on the Cobbles. Violent bully Theo Silverton’ abuse of Todd Grimshaw has been raging out of control for months, and he left the only person who knew about it – Billy Mayhew – to die in the fiery wreckage of a crashed minibus.
Predatory Megan Walsh (Beth Nixon) could also conceivably be a target were her grooming of underage Will Driscoll (Lucas Hodgson-Wale) ever to come out. Then of course, there’s Carl Webster (Jonathan Howard), whose sleazy affairs and selfish actions has made him a target of pretty much everyone in a five-mile radius.
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But could one of the villains from this rogue gallery be the victim… or the killer? Or is the mystery body somebody else entirely?
Kate gives nothing away, but teases that the five suspects in the investigation will create ripple effects that will cause significant fallout for most of the street. She gives us a tase of how the upcoming storyline will kick off.
‘Within the episode in February we’ll reveal there’s been a body found on the street by one of our characters. They’ll be questioned by the police. Then we’ll reveal to the audience who that body might be. We’ll reveal the five potential victims in that episode.
‘So we’ll know it’s been narrowed down to five. What we don’t know is who it is, because a lot of those potential victims have created a lot of waves in the street. It’s a who-they-dunnit-to, which will probably lead to a whodunnit.’
It’s the kind of complex meta storytelling that you’d expect to find in a Netflix crime drama. Is this flash-foward a Corrie first? Kate Brooks thinks so.
‘Possibly. I don’t recall another one. It’ll still feel very Corrie. The whole episode’s not a flash-forward, just sections and it becomes clear that this is taking place in the near future.
‘We start the episode in the present and then flash forward. Through the course of that episode we reveal that this is something that’s happening in the future. A body’s been found while everybody seems to be having the time of their lives doing something else entirely.’
‘Just when we think the story is going in one direction it does a U-turn and goes in a completely different direction. It’s something that keeps people on the edge of their seats I think, and keeps people guessing until the very end. Don’t be fooled by what you think is happening because that might not be the case.’
