Coronation Street boss Iain MacLeod has teased the identity of next year's mystery death, saying the scenes will be "heartbreaking" to watch.
Earlier this week, Iain – who took office as Corrie's showrunner in June – confirmed there will be a roof collapse at Underworld in 2019, resulting in the death of an unknown character.
Speaking to Digital Spy and other media at a press event, Iain said: "The scenes themselves are heartbreaking. I'm a softie anyway!"
When asked if the death would be someone who viewers care about, Iain teased: "I hope so – it's the only reason to do these things.
"The week itself is really heartbreaking and well written. There won't be a dry eye in the house when that goes out. Without wanting to sound too cynical about characters dying, the bit I'm most interested about is gradually revealing people's other secrets. The week itself is heartbreaking. It's in March."
Discussing how the idea came about, Iain explained: "It came naturally from story conferences we have with the writers.
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"My philosophy, having worked on the storylining side of Corrie myself, is that the writers have been doing it for longer than I've been born in some cases. I'd much rather they design the story and I refine the detail, the pacing of it, the characterisation. The stories come from them.
"There'll be times they pitch something I hate and we wouldn't do it in a month of Sundays! But mostly the show has done well for 60 years with them at the helm and that's always been my preference really."
Iain added: "The biggest challenge was to resist the urge to add a body count! As a producer, you do sit there and think, 'Maybe we can kill them and them and them', but we'd have no cast left! We thought restricting the body count was a good thing and making it somebody we care about and the death mattered at that point in their story. As soon as they pitched it, I loved it.
"It builds on a story with Phelan about a year ago when he worked on the factory roof. It has a satisfying feel to it. Sometimes you get a story and you think, 'I love that, we've gotta run it'.
"I like the fact it's not happening in [Britain's Got Talent] week. People get stunt fatigue and say, 'Oh here we go, it's October, they're going to blow something up'. We wanted to do it in a more surprising way at a more surprising time."
Coronation Street airs on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 7.30pm and 8.30pm on ITV.
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