Coronation Street producer Stuart Blackburn has detailed the plans for the soap's hour-long live episode, saying the key actors were going to have to be ferried on speedboats to get to their scenes in time!
Stuart talked to What's on TV about the episode which would feature the escalating vendetta between Callum Logan and the Platt family. "]
Stuart said: "We're going to have a couple of our characters who start on the Street, we're going to send them off, start shooting them on location off site where there'll be a bit of a stunt, then we want to see them back on the Street in the last couple of scenes. So just working that through... At one point we thought we were going to have send the actors on speed boats to get them to the location! [But] we're not doing that..."
Stuart said the scripts are close to completion and the Coronation Street cast, almost all of whom are involved in the live, would have two weeks to rehearse the episode.
"A lot of it's now just me walking the corridors and making sure the cast are cool," said Stuart, "and as much as anything making sure we're concentrating on what we're shooting now because the live has a habit of taking over."
He's aware that some of the interest on the live episode will be any mistakes, with Jo Joyner's blooper on the recent live EastEnders episode fresh in viewers' minds.
"The tiniest thing will get seized on. Look, not everything will go perfect, I'm not concerned with the cast we've got... the ones with the heaviest story in the live, they're big and clever enough to get themselves out of it and our director is clever enough to know when to change a camera shot and move on.
"I've got no fear about it and if there are mistakes I don't think the audience will notice it."
