JAIL ME, NOT GARY!

Can Laura con the police into believing she’s a murderer so Gary can raise her daughter? We ask Corrie’s Kel Allen

Laura takes the rap for Rick’s murder in Corrie this week – knowing she’ll soon be dead. The terminally ill mum sees it as giving a chance of happiness to her and Rick’s troubled daughter Kelly, who’s being cared for by real killer Gary and his wife Maria.

With guilt-ridden Gary about to confess, Laura tells detectives it was she who killed her loan shark ex and buried his body under Weatherfield County’s training pitch. And according to the woman who plays her, Laura’s prepared to spend her final months behind bars to make amends for being a hopeless mother. ‘Laura knows more than anyone that Rick was a bad person, and what Gary did was self-defence,’ says actress Kel Allen. ‘She can see how happy and settled Kelly is, and what Gary and Maria can do for her. She can leave a legacy for her daughter with a man who’s more decent than her father was. She isn’t doing this for Gary or his family – it’s for Kelly’s future.’

But with Gary as number one suspect, Laura will have to put on an Oscar-winning performance to make the police believe she’s the killer. ‘She has all the information she needs from Gary about the murder to make them believe she did it,’ says Kel, who’s played Laura on and off since April 2020. ‘It’s harder than she thought because the police are sure she is lying. They’ve had their eye on Gary for this for some time and just needed proof, but here is this woman who knows all the detail and wants to take the rap.’

However, it’s not just the police Laura has to convince – it’s a disbelieving Kelly, too. ‘I don’t think she initially considers that,’ says Kel, ‘and you see the emotion in those scenes when the realisation hits that

her daughter is going to hate her. Oh my god, I was sobbing and couldn’t stop even when they shouted cut.

‘But Laura is determined to do this even if she dies with her daughter believing she is a murderer. She has to make the person she loves the most hate her in order to help her.’

Kel’s already filmed her final scenes and says they were highly emotional. ‘I start filling up just thinking about them, what a way to go,’ she says. ‘When they asked me to come back for this final storyline, it was too good to turn down. It’s been three years in the making and people have been desperate for the truth to come out, but I don’t think they were expecting that twist!’

Of her time in the show, Kel adds, ‘It has been an incredible job, playing a brilliant character and being part of a storyline that has really engaged the audience. Corrie is like one big family; I feel blessed to have been part of that and will never forget this experience.’