Coronation Street star Jack P Shepherd has revealed how he helped to change Gail Rodwell’s final episodes at the last minute.
The actor, who plays Gail’s son David, encouraged show bosses to write in an extra scene featuring the full Platt family for Helen Worth’s final day of filming.
With scenes being shot out of chronological order, there was no scene featuring the whole clan scheduled in for Helen’s last day on set in October.
Jack urged producers to rethink so that all of Helen’s closest co-stars could be part of the final scene she filmed.
Speaking to and other press, Jack explained: “We had a little do on her last scene. Originally, her last scene filming was a scene with me and Julia [Goulding, who plays Shona] in the Platts’.
“I went: ‘No, no, her last scene has to be just all of us. Like, we all just have to be in the Platt house’. They said: ‘There isn’t one. There isn’t one where you’re all together’.
“I went: ‘Well f***ing write it! You know, you can’. So they went: ‘Yeah, we can’. So they did – they wrote one.
“I said: ‘We don’t have to be doing anything. We can all be non-speaking. Just make sure we’re all together in the Platt house. For God’s sake, please. For when she finally goes, don’t just have someone random with her or whatever’.
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“So they did. And luckily, they were able to do it and schedule it.”
He continued: “There were about four or five hundred people in the studio that day and they basically all came down. Lee, the first AD, came up to me and he said: ‘What do you want to do? Because I’ve got every unit saying that they want a break and they all want to come in and say goodbye. But if I ask her, she’ll say no, so what should we do?’
“I said: ‘Just do it! She’ll cry. She’ll be emotional’. But that’s the thing. You’re meant to be. That’s the thing after 50 years!’
“Helen wanted to go quietly – she wanted to go out the back door. She didn’t want to create a fuss for people. But I said: ‘It’s not so much for you. It’s not you doing the fanfare and the big farewell. It’s for the building. It’s for everyone’.
“It was really nice and we had a gathering in Nick’s Bistro. We had a few drinks, which was lovely, and they did a really nice montage.”
Jack also promised that Gail will get some significant one-to-one scenes with each of the Platts individually in the run-up to her departure.
He said: “I think we all had our own emotional scenes with her, separately. She comes to each of us separately and basically gives us a farewell.
“In rehearsals, I couldn’t really run it because I knew I only had one go at it. Otherwise, there would have been tears and then there wouldn’t be anything else left. It was me saying goodbye to Helen, and Helen saying goodbye to me after 25 years, so I only had one go in me. But we did it and it’s really good.”
