Coronation Street star Jack P Shepherd begged writers to change final Helen Worth scene as Gail’s exit looms

Coronation Street star Jack P Shepherd begged writers to change final Helen Worth scene as Gail’s exit looms

It’s almost time for Helen Worth’s Coronation Street exit, after 50 years of playing the iconic Gail Platt. And while many would think her departure would have been made perfect in just one draft, it seems that wasn’t the case.

Jack P Shepherd, who plays her on screen son, David Platt has revealed that he actually got the writers to change Helen’s final scene.

73-year-old Helen Worth’s Coronation Street exit is coming up too quickly. And only perfection will be accepted by Jack.

Coronation Street's Gail in a promo shot
Gail Platt’s Coronation Street exit is looming (Credit: ITV)

Jack changed Helen’s Coronation Street exit

It’s believed that originally her whole on-screen family were not scheduled to be a part of her last day of filming.

However, this didn’t sit well with Jack (or any of us.) And so he encouraged the higher-ups to fix this by adding an additional scene.

In typical production styles, the soap doesn’t film in chronological order, so it was just down to timings.

Speaking The Sun, Jack explained that Helen’s final scene was just with him and Julia Goulding, who plays Shona.

Jack told the soap writers: “No, no. Her last scene has to be just all of us. We all just have to be in the Platt house.”

As for the first response he got, Jack said: “They said: ‘There isn’t one. There isn’t one where you’re all together.”

This didn’t stop him, as he saw one easy solution; they change it.

“I went: ‘Well [bleep] write it! You know you can’,” he explained. “They then went: ‘Yeah, we can.’”

And that’s exactly what they did – they wrote an extra scene so Helen could end her time with her on-screen loved ones.

Why this was so important to him, Jack insisted Helen should not be filming with ‘someone random’ for her last scene.

Shona, Gail and David sitting in the Platt house
Initially Helen’s final scene was only with Jack and Julia (Credit: ITV / YouTube)

The Platt’s close bond is in real life too

The close bond between the Platt’s seem to be off-screen as much as it is on-screen. As Jack and Ben Price (Nick) recently shared how they actually learned of Helen’s Coronation Street exit.

They spoke about it on their On The Sofa podcast they co-host alongside Colson Smith (Craig Tinker.)

Jack told listeners that Helen phoned them, but he initially thought it was ‘a butt dial.’ However when Tina O’Brien messaged him telling him that Helen was trying to speak to him, he got worried.

“I thought, oh this is bad. So I phoned her,” he admitted. He was the last one out of the three of them to get the news, and when he heard, he was happy for her.

Ben added: “I think she was more nervous about ringing us than she was about leaving.”

The fabulous Gail Platt’s Coronation Street exit will air on Christmas Day – and fans don’t want to miss it.

Read more: Coronation Street cast list guide 2024

Coronation Street usually airs Monday, Wednesday and Friday on ITV at 8pm.

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