Coronation Street set for heartbreaking new bullying storyline reveals soap boss
THE teens of Coronation Street have some difficult times ahead of them as soap bosses revealed a new bullying storyline is coming up.
New bad boy Mason has already started terrorising kids at Weatherfield High since arriving on the show.
And it seems his bullying tactics are only going to escalate, as producer Iain MacLeod revealed in an exclusive chat with the Sun Online.
Reflecting on the horrors of cyber bullying, he shared: “What we wanted to do was a modern take on that. When I was growing up, bullying took place in the school playground, in the school corridors, and you could at least escape that when you went home.
“Of course, now it follows you into your home, into your bedroom, wherever you go, in the form of online abuse. So we wanted to tell an updated bullying story.”
It seems that the adults in Coronation Street will end up getting equally involved as Liam Connor gets targeted by both Mason and his sidekick Dylan Wilson.
Iain added: “We wanted to make it as far reaching and widely impactful as we could, so it’s as much about Gary and Maria and Sean and Eileen and George as kind of Dylan’s de facto grandparents as it is about the kids.
“We wanted it to be a big family story rather than a kind of teenage telling of the story. And it’s absolutely heartbreaking. I’ve just read some scenes now, which are much deeper into the story, so I think it’ll TXing next February or March.
“It’s entirely heartbreaking in terms of the reaction of the children that are on the receiving end of the bullying and the feelings of impotence that the parents feel because they know pretty damn well what’s going on, but they can’t penetrate this kind of wall of secrecy that surrounds it because the victims don’t want to speak up for fear of making it worse.
“It drives particularly Gary and Maria’s characters into quite extreme territory in terms of their emotional reaction to what they believe is happening.”
The actor behind Mason, 19-year-old Luca Toolan, revealed that he feels under pressure as the bullying storyline he is involved in gets darker.
He said: “I found out about the extent of the storyline on my first day through Liam and Charlie as they were given a lowdown as to what’s happening.
“They told me it was going to get dark. It’s exciting to be here but there’s also more pressure and responsibility to do this storyline justice.”