The big Coronation Street storyline delay was due to Covid...
Coronation Street stars Jennie McAlpine and Alan Halsall, who play Fiz Stape and Tyrone Dobbs, have revealed that their characters’ split was due to happen twelve months ago, but got pushed back because of the coronavirus pandemic.
On screen, the long-term fictional couple are currently trying to save their relationship following Tyrone’s confession that he shared a kiss with their former lodger, Alina Pop.
But next week, a situation in which Tyrone wrongly accuses Fiz of reporting Alina to the authorities for tax evasion prompts Fiz to push her partner about his true feelings.
Tyrone then admits that Alina is the woman he loves, and he moves out of number nine.
More: Unforgotten series 5 has been commissioned by ITV
The end of an era
Discussing a storyline that aired last Summer, in which Fiz feared she and Tyrone were "becoming" Jack and Vera Duckworth, Alan revealed: “At the time, we knew about this story [the split]. It was going to go out at the start of the pandemic, I believe.
“I knew about it then, but we’re not allowed to say.
"So things got put on hold and here we are, a year later, filming it. I believe it was going to go out in March of last year.”
Co-star Jennie added that she believed the delay was due to Corrie’s production team wanting to wait until social-distancing rules were relaxed, so that kissing scenes between Tyrone and Alina could be filmed.
“No-one knew what was happening with the bloomin’ pandemic, and how long it was going to be,” she says.
“We didn’t know when we came back [to filming, after Coronation Street’s shutdown] when it [the story] was going to start. It was mooted that it was going to start early this year, but we did chat, and I thought ‘I wonder if it will.’
“Like everyone in the world, we thought we’d better get on with it.”
Over for good?
Fiz and Tyrone first got together as teenagers in the early noughties, but the romance lasted mere months.
They reunited in 2012; falling in love whilst Tyrone was married to abusive wife, Kirsty Soames, and subsequently became a blended family with their respective daughters Hope and Ruby.
But actors Alan and Jennie admit they’re unsure if another reunion will ever be on the cards.
“If it gets to that point that Tyrone realises what he’s lost, there could be that thing of them trying to get back together, but that would take some ultimate forgiveness from Fiz,” says Alan.
Continues Jennie: “You look at Corrie couples, and the ones you think are never going to split up, they have done - look at Sally and Kevin.”
Coronation Street usually airs on Mondays and Wednesdays 7.30pm and 8.30pm with an hour long episode at 7.30 on Fridays on ITV.
This week the soap will air Thursday instead of Wednesday because of live football- see our TV Guide for full listings.
