ITV soap boss Iain MacLeod has spoken about the big decision to kill off Coronation Street’s Billy Mayhew in Corriedale. The kind-hearted vicar met a grisly fate on Monday night (5 January) as scheming Theo Silverton took desperate steps to silence him forever.

Billy has taken centre stage in huge scenes recently, as he discovered that his ex-partner Todd Grimshaw was being abused by his current fiancé Theo. However, when Billy attempted to help Todd escape from Theo after Debbie Webster’s wedding, controlling Theo joined them for the minibus ride home.

The bus was caught up in the multi-vehicle crash on a remote road, which brought together characters from Coronation Street and Emmerdale for the special crossover episode.

Theo had a chance to save Billy, who was stuck inside, but he ruthlessly trapped his enemy further and left him to die.

In real life, Daniel Brocklebank filmed his final scenes as Billy late last year.

“You want stuff that pays off in a really big, final way,” MacLeod told us at the recent press premiere for Corriedale. “So, Corriedale has a climatic element to it.

“Hats off to Dan Brocklebank, who obviously shot his final scenes for this episode. He was an amazing presence in the show, both on and off screen. So that was a big ending, but it’s also the beginning of us realising the true depths of depravity to which Theo might sink.”

Daniel recently caught up with Inside Soap’s weekly Soap Scoop podcast and chatted about saying goodbye to Coronation Street after 11 years. Immediately after he finished filming at the ITV soap, he started working on a stage production of Young Frankenstein at the Liverpool Playhouse.

“It’s been like being shot out of a cannon,” Daniel laughed. “I literally finished filming with Corrie at quarter to one on 18 November. And by half past one, I was in the rehearsal room with a pair of tap shoes on, singing and dancing.

“So I’ve not even had time to process that I’m not at Corrie anymore. It’s been such a busy time. I only had five days’ rehearsal. Having not really done theatre since about 2012 and having never done musical theatre, this was like a baptism of fire.”

MacLeod oversees both Coronation Street and Emmerdale as creative director of continuing drama at ITV, working closely with the shows’ respective producers Kate Brooks and Laura Shaw.