Coronation Street autumn preview: 9 spoilers as Kelly Neelan exits

The show's boss has revealed several crucial spoilers, so read on for a mammoth guide full of hints as MacLeod teases what fans can expect in the coming weeks.

1. Stephen is the Street’s next big villain

MacLeod promises that Audrey Roberts' (Sue Nicholls) son Stephen will be providing much of the drama – just as viewers guessed when he made his return earlier this year.

"Desperate is the word, and he will continue to get more and more desperate and more and more dark as the story unfolds," MacLeod explains.

The producer says that Stephen's previous stints on the show never really explored the character, giving the soap a new opportunity this time round.

"We definitely brought him back with a slightly different spin from the one we’ve seen before. The beauty of this character, really, is that he’s got this huge longevity in terms of his connection to the show and to a heritage family. But actually, he’s a bit of a blank canvas; if you think back through his archive scenes, we don’t really know a lot about him.

"So we thought, 'Well actually, if we’re going to fill in those blanks, and we’re going to learn more about him, shouldn’t we make him dark, dangerous, interesting, scheming?'"

MacLeod said mischievous is "too light a term", and perhaps he will be more "Machiavellian". "I think he’s just brought such an injection of otherness into the show – not least his accent!"

MacLeod goes on to acknowledge the viewers' reaction to Stephen.

"I know on Twitter people are going bananas because they can’t get past the fact that he’s got a North American accent, but I love that about him. It just makes him feel like this kind of instantly exotic creature that’s landed in Weatherfield."

The producer continues: "He’s a fish out of water and doesn’t quite belong there, which I think will contribute to some of the behaviours we’ll see from him in the coming months and possibly years. All in all, I’m really excited to have him back, and our viewers are so canny as well.

"As soon as he arrived everyone was like 'Ah, I’ve got him marked, he’s gonna be a wrong’un,' and they’ll prove to be right in no small measure. I’m excited to see the audience’s reaction to the unfolding story when they realise that he’s every bit as desperate and dangerous as they predicted.

"Todd is such a brilliant cast member and I love his performance. He’s so completely over the moon to be back in this role and back in the show, and is really embracing some of the more dark and dangerous elements of what we’re asking him to do. It promises to be a really brilliant story for us, I think."

2. Should we be worried about Audrey?

It seems the answer to this question is yes, according to MacLeod!

"I always worry about Audrey," he reveals. "I think any Coronation Street fan should and does worry about Audrey.

"She’s quite fragile at the moment in terms of what we’ve seen on-screen: she’s been through this depression story, and she’s attempted to take her own life. That makes her peculiarly vulnerable to Stephen because she’s clinging onto him as something positive, the light at the end of the tunnel for her emotionally – and he’s really not that, I think it’s fair to say!"

However, MacLeod assures us that we needn't fear that Audrey could come to actual harm.

"She won’t come to be in any physical jeopardy, I should say, but emotionally the stakes for her are incredibly high. She’s put all of her maternal eggs in Stephen’s basket [and] she and Gail have always had a very fraught, very complicated relationship. Whereas Stephen, possibly by not having been around, has been put on this pedestal, so she definitely stands to have her heart broken in a fairly sizeable way across the course of this story."

The producer adds: "Her family obviously have not always covered themselves in glory in their dealings with her. Going back a few years, David and Nick conspired to steal Lewis’s inheritance that he left her. They have actually learned their lesson now, but unfortunately it’s a bit too late for Audrey. She’s doesn't trust them, and throwing her lot in with probably the person that she should trust the least I think is really interesting."

3. There's drama for Jenny

Jenny (Sally Ann Matthews) is about to make a big mistake when she shares a kiss with Stephen, who is only wooing her for her money! Here, MacLeod teases the fallout of Jenny's moment of madness.

"Well, obviously secrets never stay buried in the soap for very long, do they? Or sometimes they do stay buried for quite a while, but they always come out in the end, so inevitably this secret will come out too.

"Jenny thinks she’s found her happy ever after, but obviously, in the wake of Johnny’s death, she did probably rush into this relationship a bit quickly and then spent a long time torturing herself over the idea that 'He’s too young for me, I’m too old for him, is he dating me because he’s got some fetish for slightly older women?' And eventually, none of that proved to be the case. He’s entirely genuine and she could have her happy ever after with him.

"But unfortunately, she’s made this mistake and again, in terms of the person she chose to make the mistake with (namely Stephen), she couldn’t really have picked a worse person. So yes, it will all go off in fairly spectacular fashion across the month with long-lasting consequences for the whole show."

4. Toyah’s huge confession

Toyah's turmoil is a long way off its conclusion, if indeed there is one! Here, MacLeod teases that the character will make a confession to ex-beau Spider.

"The impending prospect of a life sentence for Toyah ramps up all her emotions around what’s happened, and specifically what she did to Imran and her guilt over all that. She reaches this huge emotional crisis point where she’s got this burning desire to repent or just find some kind of catharsis.

"She ends up unburdening entirely to Spider, talking in detail for the first time about what went on behind the wheel of that car, to what extent – or not – she feels culpable for what happened to Imran, how much of it was an accident and how much of it was deliberate."

MacLeod says she reveals all to Spider, believing he's the person she can trust the most, but in fact, he is the worst person to open up to at the time.

"I can’t say a great deal more than that at this point, but the idea is that she’s head over heels in love with this guy again and has reconnected with him instantly on his return to the Street, and feels like he’s her one true friend in the world. She might not be wrong, but she’s certainly making a huge mistake in confiding all of this to him, for reasons that will become apparent!"

Whatever happens, we've been promised that the upcoming murder trial could be Toyah's undoing, as she contemplates admitting everything on the stand.

"She’s kind of on self-destruct by the time she gets up in the witness box," the producer explains. "Toyah, whatever you may come to think about what happened on the day Imran died, is fundamentally not a bad person. She certainly considers herself to have a good heart and has strong morals, so when she gets up in that courtroom, there’s every possibility that she might just hit self-destruct in some kind of desire to atone for her sins. There’s quite a lot of danger there.

"The performances, by the way, are fantastically good, and have been across the story as a whole anyway. But a particular word for Georgia: she’s so good across this story and across these court scenes, she really is. She’s not always playing the hero of the piece or the tragic heroine. She’s playing very murky and tricky to portray emotions across this story and just doing it with absolute aplomb. She’s blown me away."

Delivering one last spoiler over what's coming up for Toyah, he concludes: "The trial’s dangerous and oddly enough, the two most dangerous things in it are Toyah’s desire to set fire to her own life and Spider’s surprising level of threat when he discovers what Toyah claims she’s done in that car."

5. What is Spider's secret?

MacLeod explains that the Coronation Street team took a long look at Spider to ensure they brought the character back in the right way.

"We had a lengthy, heated debate about, 'What does Spider’s life look like now? Is he the eternal teenager that’s still chaining himself to trees or has he had to grow up as the character’s got older? [And] what does the 21st Century version of Spider look like?'" the producer says.

"I think the answers we’ve come up with are surprising, shocking, interesting and I think will make the audience gasp slightly when we discover exactly what’s going on with his life at present."

We can't wait to learn exactly what's in Spider's web! Meanwhile, the producer adds that bringing him back just felt right for Toyah and for the soap.

"He’s a fabulous character with all this heritage behind him, and he just felt like exactly the right person to reintroduce to Toyah’s life. Just at the point where she’s hit rock bottom – or so she thinks – we bring in this incredibly warm, benign, nurturing blast from the past and just reset her to a happier time.

"Giving her that little interlude of optimism and happiness felt really important in the run up to the trial, just because there’s a limit to how much self-flagellation you can enjoy as an audience. So it was just a brilliant little psychological boost for Toyah, and then of course, this being a soap, we whip the rug out from under her in fairly spectacular fashion.”

6. Showdown week unveils new technology

There's been a timebomb waiting to explode for quite a while thanks to Gary Windass (Mikey North), who killed Rick Neelan (Greg Wood) – the father of Kelly (Millie Gibson), who Gary is now a guardian for!

And with Kelly set to leave soon (more to come on that below), the stage is set for a dramatic showdown. MacLeod reveals that Corrie has used exciting new methods to put these episodes together.

"The centrepiece is a sequence that we’ve shot using technology that’s more commonly found in things like The Mandalorian, or they use a slightly larger version of this in the Avengers movies – it’s called a volume wall which is relatively new to me," he explains.

"Essentially, it’s like a very new fan-dangled version of what they would have called a green screen or back projection. It means you can put your actors anywhere that you can imagine – you can essentially design a 3D world."

He continues: "What we’ve done is create this incredible rooftop sequence with a twinkling Mancunian cityscape behind it, so that we can do things that you can never normally do in a location shoot. You can put real actors in what appears to be very real danger without using stunt performers, [and] you can have the camera behave in a way that it can’t do in the real world unless it was being operated by an Avenger! The camera can swoop and fly and move around in ways that you can’t do for real, and we’ve created this incredibly cinematic sequence for the centrepiece of this week which I’m incredibly excited about."

Summing up the week overall, MacLeod adds: "It’s visually incredibly impressive and I don't think any continuing drama as far as I know has ever used this technology before, so I think we’ll be the first to do it. It’s funny, and it’s got the party to end all parties in the middle of it. It’s characterful, it’s full of young love and it’s just a great all round week of Coronation Street."

7. Kelly makes her exit

Yes, sadly we must bid farewell to Kelly as star Gibson has decided to leave Coronation Street. This will lend a hand to exposing Gary as a killer, as MacLeod tells us.

"The gist of the week is, and it leaves me with a heavy heart to say it, but we all know Kelly’s leaving the show.

"So we thought well, actually, the fact that Millie [Gibson] is going and therefore Kelly is going allows us to go really big and do something incredibly high stakes, to maybe have some characters step on all these landmines that we’ve buried for them over the years and have them all go off in one cataclysmic explosion.

"So we’ve really thrown everything at this week to try and bring out all the big secrets, lies, reveals, schemes; it’s literally got very high stakes jeopardy."

This brings us neatly onto the premise for Gary's messy downfall...

8. Gary’s murderous secret is revealed

It's been over three years since Gary murdered Rick in what was, to be fair, an act of self-defence. But Gary's actions since then have only added to his guilt, as he allowed Kelly's mother Laura (Kel Allen) to falsely confess to the crime before she passed away.

Now, MacLeod confirms that the storyline is finally set to be wrapped up.

"Gary has to retrace his steps back into the forest of doom where he once fought for his life with Kelly’s dad, Rick. It’s really brilliant tying up on this story that began with that desperate act from Gary all those years ago.

"At times, we’ve toyed with blowing it all up and revealing the full secret to everybody and always just fall shy of that slightly, but finding ourselves in a position where we have to exit Kelly just means it’s kind of now or never, so we’ve gone for broke with it and done something I think really special, and certainly among one of the most impressive things that I’ve worked on in my varied career in soaps."

9. Introducing Dee Dee Bailey

MacLeod also offers an early teaser of Dee Dee – the much-mentioned, absent member of the Bailey family. The producer couldn't be more thrilled by the casting, and her arrival promises some fun amid the darker drama.

"I love this character," MacLeod says. "I loved her long before she physically existed just by the way she was described in the Bailey family. Essentially, you can expect a certain amount of chaos, and she's got an incredibly big heart.

He explains that there are two sides to Dee Dee in that she can be incredibly efficient one minute, then totally chaotic the next!

"She's incredibly competent at her job, but you'd never guess that to meet her. She works in law, and she's the sort of person that will take down to a team of hotshot lawyers to defend her clients, but will then turn to leave the courtroom and you realise that she's done the whole thing with her skirt tucked into her knickers.

"She's abject chaos in every regard, apart from that incredibly sharp mind. The actor we've cast, she's absolutely fantastic. She's just a complete sort of shot in the arm; she's so full of energy and vibrance, and she's just great. I'm really really excited to see her crash land into that family, and there's loads of fun stuff to play with: her being the apple of her mum's eye but in sibling rivalry with the boys."

MacLeod adds: "She's also got a very comedic relationship with her niece Glory, because she doesn't really know what to do with kids and treats them a bit like they're one her clients!"

He confirms that Dee Dee will be thrust into the community as part of another storyline, and points out that while many newcomers in soaps have a deep, dark secret, that won't be the case here!

"Whenever you introduce a new character, it's kind of the default setting to go, 'And what is her dark secret that she's concealing?' when she arrives, and ordinarily that serves you very well. But actually with this character, she's so exuberant and just seems so bulletproof and impervious to the travails of modern life., I sort of didn't want to discover that she's got some terrible burden.

"Actually, it was really refreshing when we all came to that decision which was, 'Let's not do that.' She could just be incredibly joyous and I think the world needs a bit of that at the moment."
Read more:

• Coronation Street star Millie Gibson 'quits' role as Kelly Neelan
• Who did Gary Windass kill in Coronation Street as past catches up with him?
• Coronation Street's Georgia Taylor on Toyah's guilt: 'It's a grey area'

Visit our dedicated Coronation Street page for all the latest news, interviews and spoilers. If you’re looking for more to watch, check out our TV Guide.

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