Inside Soap UK 10 - 2019

Big events cast shadows before them. And that’s doubly true in soap. It’s no secret that, next week, the factory collapses on Coronation Street, raining deadly debris on those knavish knickerstitchers below. And someone will die! (I bet it’s not Kirk. The Earth could boil into the sun and he’d still be asking what’s for his tea.) “You’ll see shadows cast in these pages” Even though disaster is a week away, you can, thanks to the Corrie story team, see the shadows of it in the pages of this issue. How will Nick pay off his blackmailer on p8? Why is Gary pursuing a new career on p11? Doesn’t that wedding dress look lovely on p18? And why does Robert suddenly loathe Carla with a raging fury on p22? From these…

Runaway Jean panics this week, when the rest of her family realise where she is – so she barricades herself inside her caravan! Having fled Walford to allow herself time to come to terms with the fact she might have cancer, Jean has ended up at a remote campsite, where she’s found a caravan to live in. But while Jean buzzes around trying to make the small space feel like home, back at the Square, Stacey is beside herself… “Don’t forget, Stacey has her own difficulties with bipolar disorder,” our Walford insider reminds us. “So the sudden disappearance of her mum has sent her anxiety levels through the roof. Despite Jean having phoned Shirley to say she was okay, Stacey remains on edge, and won’t be pacified till she has…

Discovering that you may have cancer will always come as a huge shock – though for some, like Jean, the prospect is so hard to compehend that they hide away from the truth, unable to accept the facts. “Denial may not be a conscious decison, but a gut one,” according to charity Cancer Research UK. “You might feel as if you can’t think about it and you don’t want to know anything about your cancer or your treatment.” While this is a perfectly natural reaction to have, it can obviously cause some concern for friends and family – however, given time, most people will overcome it. “In extreme cases, some people deny their cancer so firmly that they convince themselves they aren’t ill at all,” explains the charity. “You may…

This is the moment when Maya’s sick manipulation of teen Jacob looks set to be exposed – as David is seconds away from walking in on the pair getting up to no good! Now that Jacob is 16, Maya has stepped their relationship up a gear by sleeping with him. However, as she meets him at the village hall for a saucy rendezvous, little does she realise that David is on a mission to find him… “This is the most dangerous moment of their secret relationship so far,” reveals Louisa Clein, who plays Maya. “Maya has decided to seduce Jacob – he’s post-football match, and everyone else has gone. There’s the excitement that someone could walk in. It’s about control – Maya says, ‘This is what I want, and I…

The Maya and Jacob storyline is becoming more uncomfortable to watch with every passing week – but Emmerdale bosses insist that the conclusion to the controversial plot will strike the correct chord… “We’ve been working with [children’s charity] Barnardo’s to make sure that we get it right,” shares Dales producer Kate Brooks. “It’s a tricky story to tell, but we’ve managed so far to tell it as sensitively as possible. It’s won’t be as straightforward as you imagine. “We want people to be yelling at the TV, ‘Please tell somebody! This is not right! You’re a young lad, please speak out about this!’” she adds. “A lot of teenagers watch the show, and we have a duty to make sure the right protocol is carried out, with the right outcome.”…

Nick is in for a worrying time this week, as his hideous decision to steal £80,000 of his gran Audrey’s money finally rears its ugly head! Corrie viewers may recall that Nick was in league with a girl, Natalie, who worked as a waitress at the restaurant he owned with his ex-wife, Elsa, in Nottingham. Natalie helped Nick withdraw the dosh he stole from several different cash machines so that the theft couldn’t be traced back to him, and Nick thought that he’d seen the last of his dodgy associate after paying her off. However, Natalie is back to remind him that it’s going to cost him a hell of a lot more than that to buy her silence… “Nick is mad – not to mention extremely arrogant – if…