What makes a great soap?
Drama.
Intrigue.
Scandal.
And a great battleaxe.
Over the years Corrie has served up its fair share of amazing battleaxes.
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We’ve had the legendary Ena Sharples, gruff-voiced Phyllis Pearce and not forgetting Deirdre’s ma with the razor sharp gob, Blanche Hunt.
Sadly we lost all of those great characters when the actors playing them headed off to that great big soap opera in the sky.
So now the hunt is on for a new battleaxe to cause havoc on the cobbles.
Show boss, Kate Oates says she realises that Corrie has been lacking a Blanche-type character and has decided to introduce a new one, revealing, “I have said this before but I miss the kind of Blanche character.”
She went on to say that Tim Metcalfe’s mother – who we haven’t seen on screen just yet – will fill that particular void.
“People have been very keen to bring in Tim’s mum and whether she’s somebody who might rub Sally up the wrong way and to fill that Blanche-shaped hole.”
But that’s not all. Changes are afoot at Corrie and once it goes six days a week later this year, we will see more families joining the Street and the set expanded.
“There has to be loads of story going on as we go to six episodes in autumn – there will be lots of different character groups and tonnes of stories,” Kate told The Sun Online.
“We have a start date in the ether but it’s not completely confirmed yet.
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And in case any of the cast or crew were worried about the extra work load, clever Kate has worked it all out so that no one is carted off with exhaustion.
“It will be absolutely fine. I have always been cool about this coming from Emmerdale,” she said.
“We don’t film weekends there usually unless there’s been an illness or something and people don’t collapse from exhaustion there.
“It’s about ensuring the story balance is right and we’re changing the filming structure as well so crews and directors aren’t suddenly doing six a week, they will be broken up into blocks of four like at Emmerdale.”