Coronation Street fans will soon be doing a double take - Gabrielle Glaister is making a sensational return to the cobbles in a totally different role.
The residents will kept on their toes as motormouth Bernie Winter finds herself face-to-face with her doppelganger and it'll cause chaos.
The actress is back, but not as her former character Debs Brownlow on the ITV soap.
Street fans will instead be seeing double next week after her return was announced. Fern is just as dodgy and the brilliant storyline was created by Corrie favourite Jane Hazlegrove, who plays troubled Bernie.
She suggested the idea of her character having a double after she and former Corrie star Gabrielle were always mistaken for one another.
Jane put it to writer Jonathan Harvey and the doppelganger plot was hatched.
She said: “I mentioned this idea to Jonathan a while ago. Gabby and I are constantly mistaken for each other with people saying they have seen one of us in something when it was the other one.
“We have often laughed about it together but then I started thinking it might be fun to have her in the show as Bernie’s secret twin or a doppelganger.
“I was so chuffed when they told me that they had devised this storyline and that Gabby was on board.”
Her idea grew legs after she was again mistaken for Gabrielle at the Soap Awards.
She went on: “The actor was mortified when I pointed out who I was but of course I don’t mind being mistaken for Gabby, it is a huge compliment and secretly I was thinking ‘that’s brilliant, this storyline is going to work so well’."
Gabrielle says she can't wait to work with her look-a-like - and it looks like the two of them will be adding further chaos to overworked Gemma and Chesney's lives.
She said: “A very good friend of mine texted me last week to say he caught a bit of Corrie and thought I was very good. I pointed out that I wasn’t on screen yet!
“When they approached me with the storyline It seemed like fate! What they’ve written is so clever and I’m having a ball working with Jane.”
She may not be the only star stepping back onto the cobbles.
Will Mellor is reportedly set to return to Coronation Street as Harvey Gaskell following the announcement he will be sashaying onto the dancefloor for this series of Strictly Come Dancing.
Will is even said to be filming top secret scenes, with his return set to be hinted at in upcoming episodes on the ITV soap.
*Coronation Street airs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 8pm on ITV.
