Corriedale airs 5th January 2026 at 8pm on ITV1
While fans have seen the trailer for the upcoming ‘Corriedale’ crossover, the cast and crew have pulled back the curtain on the gruelling and sometimes sugary reality of filming the historic event.
Joining host Rishi Davda, the team revealed the “secret ingredients” required to blend two soap giants.
The 14-night shoot was cold, but Jack P. Shepherd revealed exactly how the cast kept their spirits up. ‘We’ve got Haribo and chocolate so just feed us and we were OK’, he joked, adding that between the ‘explosive, hairy, destruction’, the cast spent most of their time ‘just having a laugh’.
Even the action wasn’t always strictly according to the page. Jack admitted that his dramatic sprint through the flames was partly improvised. ‘I don’t think that was scripted either. I kind of just went, I’ll go full-time Cruise and I’ll just pull towards the danger’.
While the stunts provided the spectacle, the emotional heart of the crossover happened behind the scenes. Duncan shared a moving moment with soap legend Bill Roache (Ken Barlow).
‘I’ve known Bill for over 25 years, and he came onto set, he was a little bit emotional, he gave me the biggest hug’, he recalled. ‘As he was hugging me, I was thinking, he’s never hugged me before in 25 years!’. The director was so protective of Bill’s scene with Eric Pollard that he refused to let editors cut it down: ‘This is such an iconic moment. We have to give it every single second of television that we can give it’.
Reflecting on the shoot, Duncan shared: ‘I think personally, for me, it’s just been an incredible experience for however long we’ve been working on it, just an incredible experience and some real moments. I think the first scene that I shot, which was really crossing over the characters, was Steve McDonald and Cassie running down saying the ambulance is on the way.
‘Steve was saying he wasn’t going to wear a tie because he wanted to be trendy, and Jeff Hordley – as Cain – was giving him that sort of look like, “What the f***’s he talking about?” That was one of the moments I’ll remember, because that was the first moment, really, that we shot.’
Catch up on ITVX, and for classic visits to Corrie, these episodes air weekdays on ITV3 as well as on YouTube.
(Photos credit @ ITV)