Home sweet home is no longer number eight...
Coronation Street favourite Shona Platt will soon be making a permanent return to Weatherfield, but she won’t be moving back in with estranged hubby David and his family. Instead, the troubled brunette, who has been left with severe memory loss after being shot by Derek Milligan on Christmas Day, will take up residence in Roy Cropper’s flat.
Shona is currently living in a rehabilitation centre in Leeds, but she’s persuaded to make a brief visit to number eight next week by sister-in-law Sarah, who hopes it might spark some memories.
The visit proves overwhelming for Shona, and she ends up going awol. When she’s later found by Roy, he invites her to move in with him and his niece, Nina. We’re not entirely sure how many bedrooms his cosy flat has, but hey, details schmetails.
Reveals actress Julia Goulding: “Shona doesn’t remember Roy, but how could you not love him, even at a first meeting? He’s a gentle soul and he’s very patient, so he’s the obvious choice to help her.
“For me, it’s a delight to work with David Neilson (who plays Roy) again. I’ve missed him, with Shona not being in the café."
Shona hasn’t been seen on screen since January. In real life, star Julia was temporarily written out of the soap to have maternity leave with son Franklin, who was born in November and is her first child with teacher husband Ben Silver.
When the former café worker makes a comeback, she will still have no recollection of husband David, whom she married in The Bistro last year. Meanwhile, viewers are set to notice a substantial change in her personality.
Reveals Julia: “Shona has lost, very roughly, around four years of her recent memory, so that includes the whole time she has been living in the street. She has no recollection of the street itself, of Roy’s Rolls, of anything. In her head, she’s very much still living on the Dog and Gun estate.
“She is quite unrecognisable, personality wise, to how we remember Shona to be.
"She’s a lot more impulsive and she can get frustrated, which can come out as anger, so the way she behaves is quite cold. It’s going to be really interesting to see how the audience take to her.
“She’s being told that she’s married to this person that she doesn’t know, so she’s quite scared as well. Her whole life is unknown. She wants to remember; she’s desperate to.”
Coronation Street continues on ITV.
