From her famous singalongs to her street scrap with Eileen Grimshaw (Sue Cleaver), Gail Platt (Helen Worth) has had her fair share of comedic moments during her 50 years on Coronation Street.
Now, Gail’s on-screen family have revealed the funniest moment they had on set with Helen.
Jack P. Shepherd, who plays David Platt, recalled a particular episode from 2016, where the Platt family ‘couldn’t get through’ the scene for ‘p****** themselves’ laughing.
The scene in question saw the family of Bethany Platt’s (Lucy Fallon) school bully Lauren arrive on the street to confront Nick Tilsley (Ben Price), after he’d stepped in to protect his niece.
Speaking on the On the Sofa podcast he hosts with Corrie co-stars Colson Smith and Ben Price, Jack reminisced: ‘Some family have got some beef with Sarah Lou, Bethany and the kid Harry. This family come round and they’re having a go.
There’s me, Helen, Ben and Tina [O’Brien, who plays Sarah] in the scenes and the family were kicking off, and then they called the [Sarah’s baby son Harry] ugly.
‘We’re going, “Ugly?” and he’s going, “I can’t believe you called the thing ugly.”
‘I don’t know why, but we lost our heads and we couldn’t get through the scene,’ Jack recalled. ‘Me, Helen, Tina and Ben were pissing ourselves at the scene that we couldn’t get through and couldn’t remember.
‘But the family that had come on to do just these two, three scenes, they were so professional and it was everything to them. They’d rehearsed this at home, and they were good. But they were fully serious and we were pissing around.
Ben added: ‘It’s like at school when you’re getting told off, it gets worse, and you can’t laugh. But of course, you try to stop laughing, so you laugh more.’
Helen announced she’d quit the cobbles after 50 years back in June, with Gail’s on-screen departure set to air over Christmas.
Gail’s exit story was originally set to involve her reuniting with her former husband Martin Platt, but after Sean Wilson left the show after filming had started, the story was quickly redrafted and John Thomson was brought back as Jesse Chadwick.
The couple are set to tie the knot on Christmas Day, before leaving the cobbles before the end of the year.
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Earlier this month, Jack also spoke on the podcast of how he mistook a call from Helen to inform him of her decision to leave as a ‘butt dial’.
‘It was maybe this time last year. It was about November time and she rang us and I thought, that’s a butt dial. So I blanked it!
‘I then got a text from Tina [O’Brien] saying, “Helen’s trying to ring you”, so I thought this is bad. I phoned her and she said, hello, hello, I’ve told…she’d told Ben, she’d told Tina, so I instantly know what’s happening, she’s off! And she says, I’m going, I’ve decided to leave, and she feels as though she’s done her time.
‘So I said great, fantastic, you know, you’ve earned it! I mean bloody hell, 50 years in any gig is a long time.’
Coronation Street airs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 8pm on ITV1 or stream first from 7am on ITVX. Listen to On the Sofa on podcasting platforms now.
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