Corrie resolves 'four funerals' mystery

Coronation Street fans have now seen the last of the soap's 50th anniversary deaths, Digital Spy can confirm.

Last week, viewers saw Ashley Peacock (Steven Arnold), Molly Dobbs (Vicky Binns) and Charlotte Hoyle (Becky Hindley) all perish as the soap marked its milestone with seven special episodes which saw disaster hit the cobbles.

However, as the celebrations concluded on Friday night, some fans were left wondering whether there was more tragedy to come as trailers for the 50th anniversary had contained the tagline "Four Funerals and a Wedding".

DS can now confirm that the mystery fourth death was the taxi driver and father-of-three mentioned by firefighters in Thursday night's live episode. He had been close to The Joinery when the bar exploded.

Corrie bosses had created the "Four Funerals" tagline as a red herring in a bid to increase the speculation and secrecy surrounding the high-profile week of episodes.

Show producer Phil Collinson today confirmed to DS: "It was vital that we created as much anticipation and intrigue as possible for anniversary week. The 'Four Funerals' tag was too good to resist and encouraged the speculation about who would and who would not survive this terrible week in Weatherfield.

"In this case, speculation became a big part of the viewers' identification with the drama and therefore enhanced their enjoyment of it."

Ashley's passing was confirmed last Wednesday as he died a hero while trying to save Peter Barlow (Chris Gascoyne) in the crumbling Joinery. Molly died in the next evening's episode due to the injuries she sustained in the tram crash.

Meanwhile, Charlotte's demise began when John Stape furiously attacked her with a hammer just before the tram hit. After making her terrible fate look like part of the carnage on the cobbles, John later advised Charlotte's parents to turn off her life support machine once doctors explained that she would not wake from her coma.

> Click here to read more about Corrie's 50th anniversary