Coronation Street’s Shayne Ward has revealed how the cast really feel about the show moving to six episodes a week.
From next week the soap will have an extra outing on a Wednesday evening at 8.30pm, meaning we’ve got a double bill Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
And despite some reports suggesting this is a bad idea, Shayne has revealed they’re actually “very excited” about the whole thing.
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The key storyline to kick things off will be when Shayne’s character Aidan Connor prepares to marry Eva Price.
Shayne also promised “emotion and heartbreak” when Aidan tells Eva about his affair with Maria.
Connor broke off the affair when Price told him she was pregnant but he is now poised to confess on the day of their wedding.
Unbeknown to him, she has been aware of his cheating for months and is planning to exact her revenge.
He told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “It’s been a slow burner but it’s been great, a lot of people are expecting something to happen now so all of next week is the whole build up to the wedding.
“The fact that Eva (Catherine Tyldesley) knows about Aidan’s cheating with Maria (Samia Longchambon) and he hasn’t got a clue, it’s very exciting. We’ve had a lot of fun with it.”
Asked if the wedding will go ahead, Ward replied: “Do we believe in happy endings in soap? I don’t know. Who knows if he’s going to go ahead with it? Do we, don’t we?
“But it’s full of emotion. A lot more revelations are going to be coming out and there is a lot of heartbreak there so it’s going to be quite upsetting to see.”
He said Connor’s bid to save his relationship is “absolutely heartfelt”, adding: “He has a conversation with his sister Kate and Kate says something to him that makes Aidan realise ‘you know what, if I’m going to start married life, I want it to be completely clean cut.’
“She’s having my baby, or is she? He wants a clean start.”
The soap will air six days a week when the storyline kicks off and some criticism has been levelled at the show for the move.
When it was announced last year that it would be happening, Corrie legend, the late Roy Barraclough, who played Alec Gilroy, told The Mirror “The quality is bound to suffer.
“The actors will not be able to cope, so they will inevitably have to get in more actors to play more characters. With such a huge cast it is very difficult to pull that off.”
He added: “It is a mistake, it’s pure overkill.”
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Other reports in The Sun and Mirror suggested the show’s team were also worried about the extra workload.
A source told The Sun: “They believe many more cast will need to be hired to cope, if they don’t the existing cast are going to be worked to the bone to fill the extra half an hour, and it’s the same with crew.
“The cast fear that going to an extra episode will bore fans.”
Although Corrie hit back at the claims and told Digital Spy: “We’ve had an overwhelmingly positive response to the news from the cast, writers and crew.”
Ward spoke this morning about how the cast and crew have been finding it.
“We have been completely flat out filming but we are very excited.
“We unveiled the new studios two days ago and even though we are going to be doing to more episodes, we just love working and are absolutely having a ball on set.
“We are not even fussed about there being more scenes, the more scenes the better. The public will want them as well because they love Corrie.”