Coronation Street spoilers follow.
Coronation Street has an explosive fortnight lined up for Debbie Webster, as drama surrounds the day of her wedding to Ronnie Bailey. Debbie is desperate for her bickering family to unite and concentrate on being happy for her – at least for one day – but can her brothers Kevin and Carl really put their differences aside after so much turmoil over Abi?
Whatever happens on the day, the Websters will be ones to watch in the hour-long Corriedale crossover special, as Debbie and Carl find themselves in the danger zone after speeding away from the wedding venue together!
Here, Sue Devaney – who plays Debbie – previews the high-stakes scenes to come.
Hi Sue! What are Debbie’s hopes for her wedding?
“Oh, she wants a big extravaganza of a wedding! She wants everything: flowers, flamingos, big hair, peacocks, a big dress – the works. And I think because she feels that this might be the last massive party that she has, she wants to do it in style with no expense spared.”
Debbie wants Kevin and Carl to put their feud aside and walk her down the aisle together. How important is that to her?
“She’s absolutely in crisis about it, because she wants everybody to be getting along. She wants her family there – and them all to be having fun and joining in. And of course, Kevin’s falling out with Abi and he’s falling out with his brother, so that’s stressful in itself.
“I mean, it’s stressful organising a wedding, but on top of that she’s doing it with dementia. She booked somewhere and that fell through because she booked the wrong year. So then she had to find another venue, and that was stress in itself. And then it’s like: ‘Who to invite?’ She wants to invite everybody and everybody is to get on, just for this day.”
Did you have any input into the wedding and the costume?
“I said: ‘I just want to look like a Joan Collins from Rochdale’. And they delivered brilliantly! I like the feathers and that kind of 50s shape with big shoes and a big feather headdress.”
What does Ronnie mean to Debbie?
“I think she’s never found true love until now. And I think because Ronnie said to her, ‘I’m not going anywhere, you might be poorly, you might have dementia, but I’m sticking by your side’ she just sees that as, ‘This must be true love. This is true love’.”
How was it to film with a real-life dementia choir for this episode?
“I was over the moon because it was so beautiful. And when they started singing, I had a little tear. It was fabulous. And then when we weren’t filming and we were just sat there, we had a good singalong. We were all singing songs and it was so lovely. And they sounded amazing.”
We’ve heard there’s a fun scene at the wedding where Debbie and Bernie are in a golf cart together?
“Honestly, I have just had the best time with all these girls. We were in the bridal suite and Bernie’s forgotten something to give Debbie, so I say: ‘Well, you know, I hope this is not a bad omen’. And then Debbie gets fixated on finding this yellow jasmine, because reception have said they’ve got some yellow jasmine in the garden. So they go on a hunt for it.
“Debbie’s just fixated on getting this, so it’ll bring a lot of luck. And of course, they get lost in the forest, turn around and every tree looks the same! They’re thinking: ‘How do we get back?’
“And then they nick a golf buggy and Bernie’s going: ‘I’ll get you there, I’ll get you there on time’. We had such fun… classic Corrie. And Jane Hazlegrove is the best golf buggy driver I’ve ever come across. Not that I’ve been in many golf buggies!”
We know the scenes with Debbie, the other Weatherfield ladies and the trolley also had a great reaction recently…
“That was one of my favourite episodes I’ve ever done on Corrie, because it was women supporting women. And I think that those friendships and those bonds that you have with another woman is something that has to be highlighted, because you don’t see it that often in soap – you’ve got frenemies, you’re always fighting.
“So to actually say, you know, these women love each other and they’re so different. And we had a bunch of women that were all different personalities, but everybody was together in a scene. I think they should do an episode just with women. I think that would be lovely, that would be brilliant.”
Around the time of the wedding, there’s a lot of drama going on behind the scenes with Abi, Carl and Kevin. Is Debbie aware of that?
“I think that she’s asked Kevin to not fall out and to just be friends, just to get through the day. She knows that Carl and Kevin aren’t getting on very well. Abi and Carl have split up, but she can’t keep up with everything because it’s like one minute they’re together, then they’ve split up.
“And I think there’s going to be a lot of tension around the wedding where Abi is watching out for Carl because she doesn’t trust him. But Carl, in Debbie’s eyes, can’t do anything wrong, because she loves her brother.”
Is Debbie really oblivious to Carl taking advantage of her condition, or is she letting him get away with little things?
“I think she’s letting him get away with little bits of things. I think Debbie’s… she’s not that far down the line that she doesn’t see things. Love is blind, isn’t it? Yeah, love is blind.”
How did you feel when you found out that Debbie would be in the Corriedale special?
“I was so thrilled. I’ll tell you why: because when we’re filming Corrie, we come to work, we come to the studio every day. Corriedale was on location. It was also being with Emmerdale. It was being with a new crew, a director who works between the two.
“But it was exciting because we were doing night shoots, working with different cameras. We were on location and we were all staying in a hotel. So it was like: ‘Oh, I’m on my holidays!’ It was really good fun and it was exciting because it’s something fun to do. And also with all the stunts. It felt like doing a little movie or something.”
After the wedding, Debbie sees Carl drinking heavily and jumps into a car with him. Why does she get so closely involved, especially on her wedding day?
“She doesn’t want Carl to leave the wedding. And also he’s drunk, so she doesn’t want him to drive off. She jumps in the car. That’s sensible. Well, she jumps in the car thinking: ‘Well, you can’t go anywhere if I’m in the car’. And he thinks, ‘Well, I’m going somewhere,’ and carries on driving far too fast.”
It’s no secret that Corriedale revolves around a multi-vehicle crash scene. What was it like doing the stunts?
“If I wasn’t an actor, I would have loved to have been a makeup artist or a stuntwoman. I always loved stunts. I like doing my own stunts. So when I was a paramedic in Casualty, I used to drive the ambulance really fast and do as many of my stunts as I could.
“So on this, I was just getting excited, beside myself. And there was one scene where Carl had to drive off really fast and they had a dummy for me, with the hair and feathers in the hair and everything.
“I said to our director, ‘Can I not speed off with the stunt guy?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, go on then’. He let me do it! Just for the excitement of getting into the car and driving off really fast. Amazing.”
What’s coming up for Debbie in 2026?
“It’s not going to be plain sailing. She’s going to be married, which she is very excited about. But I think there’s going to be some massive reveals, things that we didn’t know about Debbie, and also quite a bit of reflection.”
