Coronation Street writers are ‘working furiously’ to work out storylines amid lockdown, says Geoff actor Ian Bartholomew

Ian, who plays Geoff on the ITV soap, said it's been a "headache" for bosses to rewrite episodes to fit in with future social distancing rules.

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Appearing on Lorraine on Wednesday, Ian talked about how the soap will function when lockdown is lifted.

He admitted: “It is very odd, it has to be said. But I think everybody is finding it very odd.

"What is, I think, at the forefront of everybody's mind at the moment is what happens after this is all over? What happens after lockdown? What happens when we get back to work?

"Because it will change the map of how we work and we make the programme because we will have to have social distances and we will have to have smaller crews."

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The 65-year-old added: "That’s the headache the writers and the producers and storyliners have at the moment.

"They are working furiously to try and pull the story lines they have got, back into some sort of shape that they will be able to tell in a different way.

"So it’s going to be very interesting when we get back... For me, just before we went into lockdown, I was flat out and then bang, nothing. It’s very strange.”

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Ian also talked about his children not being able to watch him playing Geoff because of his domestic abuse storyline.

He confessed: "I don’t like him [Geoff] very much at all. "

"They didn’t want to watch, they saw me lock Yasmeen into the box, the ‘magic box’ and they said, ‘No, can’t watch Dad doing that’.

"So they haven’t watched since then and I can’t blame them. It  must be quite difficult for them to watch their dad being unpleasant the whole time.”

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Coronation Street shut down production shut down last month amid the coronavirus pandemic and cut down to just three episodes a week.

The cast recently reunited for a boozy video call in fancy dress during lockdown.

 Daniel Brocklebank, who plays Billy Mayhew, decided on a Woodstock theme and Julia Goulding (Shona Ramsey) and Sue Cleaver (Eileen Grimshaw) took part dressed as hippies.