Coronation Street favourite Leanne Battersby will be forced into a dangerous situation to save son Simon in an exciting new storyline on the ITV soap.
The grieving mum will have to fight to save Simon after he gets himself into trouble, Corrie boss Iain Macleod has revealed.
Viewers watched last year as Leanne fought to save son Oliver after he developed an incurable condition.
He died, leaving Leanne devastated, and her grief will fuel the next storyline.
Iain explained to press outlets: “What we’re trying to do with Simon and Leanne is find a way to play their grief that doesn’t feel like grief stories that we’ve done.
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“We’ve come up with something that starts quite small. But ends up turning into this colossal, thriller-ish, high-octane piece that will play out in the first six months of 2021.
“It ends up with Simon being driven by grief and getting himself into an inescapable situation.”
Speaking further, he said it forces Leanne to “put her war paint on” to defend her remaining son – and that she takes on an “incredibly dangerous situation” to protect him.
Leanne Battersby battles to save son Simon in Coronation Street
“That ends up drawing in Nick and Sam,” Iain continued. “And it collides with Peter and Carla’s love story too. It is a grief story.”
Iain also said it won’t be anything like “one woman sitting alone” and “feeling sad”.
He added: “We were quite keen to use Leanne’s grief as a launch-pad into something exciting. I think we’ve achieved that, without feeling like we’re doing a disservice to the Oliver story.
“The risk when you set out to do something really unusual with a grief story is that it can feel insensitive. But I really don’t think it does.
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“It beautifully pays off the grief and then turns into something brilliant and exciting at the end of it.
“Stories focusing on a character experiencing a very tragic event can sometimes imbue everything they do for years afterwards with a dark and brooding tone.
“We were keen to avoid that and I think we’ve done that quite deftly.”
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