Coronation Street spoilers follow.
Coronation Street fans see Todd Grimshaw’s desperate bid for freedom screech to a halt on Corriedale next week, when the minibus carrying him to safety explodes into a deadly fireball – and not everyone will make it out alive.
But there’s an even bigger threat to their last-minute bolt for survival when Theo Silverton also boards the bus with Todd and Billy Mayhew…
“Tension is high!” warns actor Gareth Pierce, who plays Todd. “Todd is escaping potentially a life-or-death situation in the first place, and then they run into another. All three of them are injured…”
After discovering Todd’s horrific bruises at the hand of Theo, Billy offers to help Todd get home from Debbie Webster and Ronnie Bailey’s wedding and collect his things while his abusive boyfriend is out. However, right at the moment they’re about to leave, Theo joins them with his suitcase.
“It’s like a horror film!” declares Gareth. “Todd and Billy look like they’re getting to the exit door, on the road out of hell and then the monster pulls them back in when Theo gets on the minibus. Viewers will feel that sinking feeling.”
ITV
Related: Corriedale wedding horror ahead as Carl loses control
The nightmare is just beginning for the other wedding guests aboard the vehicle, too, as the minibus skids on the wet road, colliding with another vehicle in a horror crash!
As the flames soar, the injured wedding guests – including the pregnant Shona Platt – fight to get out. But who will survive?
Corriedale is a one-hour crossover episode which sees the worlds of Coronation Street and Emmerdale collide for the first time. The special event marks the beginning of ITV’s new soap power hour, which will see Emmerdale and Corrie each air one 30-minute episode each weeknight from next week.
“We started off with a shopping list of what’s the best things that can happen in a soap,” ITV soap boss Iain MacLeod recently told us. “From pregnancy reveals to murderer reveals to affair reveals.
ITV
Related: Corriedale fan vote is officially open – here’s how to influence the special crossover episode
“We literally just put the shopping list down and went, ‘wouldn’t it be great if we could get every single one of these things into an episode? Would that not be like the best episode of soap you’ve ever seen?’
“And we had a flaming good go, let me say. We wanted to showcase the best of our storytelling, the best of our technical craft, both the production teams, the crew, everybody behind the scenes.
“It’s absolutely stunning and if anyone has the temerity to look down their nose at soap as a genre after watching that, then I’ll be writing them a sternly worded letter!”
Coronation Street airs on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 8pm on ITV1 and streams on ITVX. Corriedale airs on Monday 5 January at 8pm on ITV1.
Read more Coronation Street spoilers on our dedicated homepage
Coronation Street is working on Todd and Theo’s story with support from Galop, the LGBTQ+ anti-abuse charity. For more information and resources, visit the charity’s website or contact the national helpline on 0800 999 5428.