Coronation Street boss reveals that a romance story for Gail Rodwell was SCRAPPED

Gail Platt returns from Thailand and is shocked to see Tracy and Sally tearing a strip off Bethany in Coronation Street

No husband number six for Gail…yet!

Coronation Street producer Iain MacLeod has revealed that he ditched a plan for Gail Rodwell to have a holiday romance during her hiatus in Thailand.

Instead, Gail (played by Helen Worth) will still be footloose and fancy free when she returns to the cobbles next week after three months overseas.

Asked at a Coronation Street press event whether Gail had met a fella on her travels, MacLeod revealed: “There was originally a story on the table where she did, but we moved away from that in the end, just because we felt like we didn’t want Gail to get together with another serial killer. And if we were going to do it, we’d want to do it on screen rather than off screen.”

Gail will arrive home next Friday 25th October, just in time to witness young Bethany getting a tongue-lashing from Sally Metcalfe and Tracy Barlow. Her granddaughter becomes a street pariah after sharing a kiss with Daniel Osbourne while his wife Sinead is on her death bed.

WHAT IS ON TONIGHT? Check out our NEW and improved TV Guide

Daniel and Bethany Platt kiss passionately in Coronation Street

Bethany gets a tongue lashing after her shock kiss with Daniel in Coronation Street next week

MacLeod adds that Gail’s holiday romance isn’t the only storyline that was changed. Initially, it was intended for the character to have undergone something of a transformation after taking up yoga. However, this was later toned down.

He says: “Less has happened to Gail than had originally happened in some versions of the story, where she came back fully meditative and doing yogic flying and the like.

“She’s still the Gail that we recognise, but she’s a little more grounded and more mother earth. She’s the Gail we know and love, but there might be a few more harim pants in her wardrobe, and a few more coiffure choices.

“It won’t turn into a pastiche of hippy lifestyle. She’s still Gail.”

Alison Slade
Soaps Editor
Alison Slade has over 20 years of experience as a TV journalist and has spent the vast majority of that time as Soap Editor of TV Times magazine.  She is passionate about the ability of soaps to change the world by presenting important, issue-based stories about real people in a relatable way. There are few soap actors that she hasn’t interviewed over the years, and her expertise in the genre means she has been called upon as a judge numerous times for The British Soap Awards and the BAFTA TV Awards.

When she is not writing about soaps, watching soaps, or interviewing people who are in soaps, she loves going to the theatre, taking a long walk or pottering about at home, obsessing over Farrow and Ball paint.