Coronation Street boss Iain McLeod has revealed how the soap will tackle the coronavirus pandemic when it resumes production.
Back in March, it was revealed that Corrie intended to feature scenes referencing how viewers could prevent the spread of coronavirus, but filming on the show was shut down due to the crisis before these could be recorded.
In a new interview, Iain has revealed that he intends to address the pandemic in Corrie when filming is resumed, even if it won’t “dominate” the action on the cobbles.
“We took the view that it has to exist in our world,” he explained. “However, I am also aware that people tune into Coronation Street for escapism, to some degree, and to see drama and stories that they would never normally experience in their own lives, and stuff they would normally never see in their own living rooms played out on screen.
“While the virus will exist in Coronation Street, we were also keen that it wouldn’t dominate every single story and every single scene.”
He continued: “If your lives are anything like mine, certainly coronavirus is pretty much the only topic of conversation in my house, but people wouldn’t want to tune into Coronation Street and see every scene was people talking about coronavirus.”
Iain went on to say that he was initially considering not including the outbreak in any future Corrie scenes, but ultimately felt that would go against the show’s values.
Speaking to Digital Spy, he noted: “The Coronation Street that we love reflects modern Britain, albeit in a heightened way sometimes. We felt that if there was no coronavirus present in Coronation Street, it would stop being a reflection of modern Britain and we’d instead be a parallel fantasy-land.”
Last week, ITV boss Kevin Lygo admitted that both Coronation Street and Emmerdale are coming close to running out of episodes, with the former having enough banked up to last until June, while the latter has even fewer.
He also spoke about how they would work around social distancing guidelines when filming resumes.