Coronation Street star Daniel Brocklebank has detailed the real 'grief' on set as the ITV soap's Motor Neurone Disease storyline unfolds. Last month, Paul Foreman received the devastating news that he has the fatal, rapidly progressing disease that affects the brain and spinal cord.
But the former builder, who only discovered anything was wrong after he was accidentally knocked over by Carla Connor in her Underworld van when she had been unknowingly drugged with LSD by Stephen Reid, has kept the news from his loved ones, only confiding in his friend and former flatmate Dee-Dee Bailey.
However, after falling out with his twin sister Gemma Winter on her hen night, Billy Mayhew, played by Daniel, urges Paul to apologise but Paul refuses to discuss it. Billy confides in Dee-Dee how worried he is about Paul and demands to know what’s going on, not knowing Paul's diagnosis or the fact that he standing up in court after stealing cars to fix his money woes.
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Viewers will see in scenes to air on Friday night that outside the court, Dee-Dee wonders where Paul has got to. It is Damon Hay who finds Paul sitting alone in Victoria Garden and urges him to do the right thing, get himself down to the court and embrace the life he has left.
Paul, played by Peter Ash, finally arrives at court and Dee-Dee’s awash with relief. But unbeknown to Paul, Billy too heads into the courthouse and Paul is horrified to see him there. The magistrate addresses Paul and tells him that in light of his serious medical condition, MND, he’ll receive a suspended sentence, leaving Billy in shock.
With Billy now in the know, it means that Daniel and Peter have been filming more emotional scenes as they come to terms with Paul's terminal diagnosis. But on the scenes in which Billy discovered the truth, Daniel told the Manchester Evening News and other press: "They were brutal [to film]. I came home exhausted after that day.
"Pete and I had done some filming that day with Rob Burrow which i think added to the intensity of filming them. Obviously having spent the afternoon with someone with advanced MND, and such a hero like Rob who has made such a huge impact on the MND community and MND association, I think it added to that day.
"And they're heartbreaking. Even during the read through, Pete and I were welling up. Sometimes you make a choice about how you're going to play things [but] sometimes you don't get a choice. Sometimes it just gets you and you literally can't choose anything else because that's how it makes you feel in that moment."
And Daniel shared how the emotions have been 'real', despite them knowing what they're doing isn't. "But knowing that Pete's time in the show is now coming to an end, there is a deep sadness in that," the actor said. "I mean, Jane Hazlegrove, who plays Bernie, Jane can't keep her eyes dry at all.
"She sees Pete limping onto the set and she's welling up. We're grieving Peter leaving rather than Pete, thankfully, not dying but the emotions are genuine."
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