Coronation Street producer Iain MacLeod has shared all about a major storyline for much-loved character Evelyn Plummer (Maureen Lipman) which will land her in serious danger.
Evelyn has become a big fan-favourite ever since she arrived on the cobbles in 2018 as Tyrone Dobbs' (Alan Halsall) no-nonsense grandmother.
Her acid tongue and one liners has rubbed some fellow residents up the wrong way in the past, but this time she is set to make a new enemy in Weatherfield when she sees a man mistreating his dog.
Fans fell in love with Evelyn and her beloved dog Cerberus, who had to be put down after he ate an Eccles cake that her friend Roy Cropper (David Neilson) had dropped on the floor of his café.
Evelyn was devastated when she was told that Cerberus was suffering from food poisoning and kidney failure and she was by his side when he was put to sleep.
Cerberus became a close companion to Evelyn and with dogs having such a special place in her heart, it's no surprise that she would take action if she saw one being abused.
However, this confrontation with a stranger could lead to some very serious circumstances for Evelyn, with court appearances and hospital trips all on the cards for this storyline in November — oh, and it also involves some mint imperials!
Iain told What To Watch: "We basically thought, ‘What do the viewers love?’ Essentially, we thought, ‘They love Evelyn and they love dogs’ because who doesn’t love dogs? So we thought let’s do a story about that. It ends up, actually, in quite serious territory but to start with, Evelyn makes herself a bit of an enemy in the shape of a fella that she sees mistreating his dog and it starts with this relatively small exchange where they cross paths in the precinct and some crossed words are exchanged, and it goes from there to a situation which ends up with court appearances and trips to the hospital and really quite serious danger for both Evelyn and Cassie."
Iain added that they used the storyline to explore Evelyn and her estranged daughter Cassie's (Claire Sweeney) dynamic, whose relationship became fractured when Cassie became a drug addict.
But this time, they could be on the path to reconciliation.
He explained: "We thought it’s an opportunity to do a couple of things really. Number one, see Maureen being strident and brilliant and kicking the hides and taking names, but also a chance for us to explore more of her relationship with Cassie, which obviously pretty much since Cassie was a teenager had been kind of non existent, and what of it that has existed has been bad tempered and lots of estrangement. So it’s an opportunity to explore their dynamic as they find themselves on the same team for the most part of this story.
"Cassie, as is her preference, takes things too far, which causes some serious strife for Evelyn, so that then threatens to set their relationship back again, but by the end of it, they’ve achieved a new level of equilibrium, a new understanding of each other, and to some extent got to know each other as grown ups for the first time."
Evelyn's close friend Roy also gets involved in the drama as they join forces to take down this man, which leads to a very serious story.
Iain added: "As I say it starts off with this relatively innocuous exchange with Evelyn and Roy and it’s almost played quite comically in terms of Evelyn and Roy taking on this man about how he’s treating his dog, and then suddenly you find yourself in the midst of this really serious story. I love stories like that, that starts off with an acorn of something and suddenly you’ve got this forest of bad outcomes for all our favourite characters."
Coronation Street airs hour-long episodes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 8 pm on ITV — see our TV Guide for full listings. You can also catch up on episodes on ITVX.
