Coronation Street executive producer Iain MacLeod has revealed that Mille Gibson's upcoming exit from the soap as Kelly Neelan will feature movie-style technology.
The teenager will bow out as part of a storyline that will include dramatic scenes on a rooftop involving her guardian Gary (Mikey North), whom unbeknownst to her was responsible for the murder of her father Rick.
"Gary has to retrace his steps back into the forest of doom where he once fought for his life with Kelly's dad Rick Neelan," MacLeod told press recently.
"So yeah, it's a really brilliant kind of tying up, slash full stop on that story that began with that desperate act from Gary all those years ago.
"At times we've toyed with blowing it all up and revealing the full secret to everybody and always just fell shy of that slightly but as I say, finding ourselves in a position where we're having to exit Kelly, it just means it's kind of now or never."
Talking about the rooftop scenes, he added: "We've decided to go full on. The centrepiece of the week is a sequence that we've shot using technology that's more commonly found in things like The Mandalorian, or they use a slightly larger version of this in a lot of The Avengers movies.
"So what we've done is create this incredible rooftop sequence with a sort of twinkling Mancunian cityscape behind it, so that we can do things that you could never normally do in a location shoot. You can put real actors in what appears to be very real danger without using stunt performance. You can have the camera behave in a way that it can't do in the real world.
"So we created this incredibly cinematic sequence at the centrepiece of this week, which I'm incredibly excited about. I've only seen the rushes and it already looks incredible. So there's that.
"The gist of the week is, we all know, and it leaves me with a heavy heart to say, but we all know Kelly's leaving the show. So we thought 'well, actually, the fact that Millie is going and that therefore Kelly is going allows us to go really big and do something incredibly high stakes', to maybe have some characters step on all these landmines that we've buried for them over the years and have them go off in one cataclysmic explosion.
"So we've really thrown everything at this week to try and bring out all the big secrets, lies, reveals, and schemes. As I say, it's literally got very high stakes and jeopardy, it's visually incredibly impressive. I don't think any continuing drama, as far as I know, has ever used this technological before. I think we will be the first to do it. So it's got that kind of truly cinematic feel to it. It's funny, it's got the party to end all parties in the middle of it."
The plot is expected to air in the coming weeks.
Neil Wilkes
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