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Gabrielle Glaister joins Coronation Street for doppelganger storyline

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Gabrielle Glaister joins Coronation Street for doppelganger storyline

Coronation Street viewers will be seeing double next week when Bernie Winter finds herself face to face with her doppelganger.

Jane Hazlegrove came up with the idea of her character having a double after she and fellow actress Gabrielle Glaister were constantly mistaken for each other. She mooted the idea to writer Jonathan Harvey and the Bernie/Fern mirror image plot was developed with Gabrielle cast as Fern.

Jane has revealed that due to their likeness some of their Coronation Street colleagues have had difficulty in distinguishing who’s who.

She noted of the storyline:

“I mentioned this idea to Jonathan a while ago. Gabby and I are constantly mistaken for each other with people saying they have seen one of us in something when it was the other one. We have often laughed about it together but then I started thinking it might be fun to have her in the show as Bernie’s secret twin or a doppelganger.

“I was chuffed when they told me that they had devised this storyline and that Gabby was on board.

“Shortly after I had heard that we were doing the story, I was at the Soap Awards and someone who used to work with Gabby started talking to me thinking I was her. The actor was mortified when I pointed out who I was but of course I don’t mind being mistaken for Gabby, it is a huge compliment and secretly I was thinking ‘that’s brilliant, this storyline is going to work so well’.”

Gabrielle said:

“Jane and I have been mistaken for each other for years and years. Me constantly denying that I was in Casualty, Jane insisting that she wasn’t in Brookside! Or people congratulating me on my performance in something I wasn’t in because it was Jane being brilliant. A very good friend of mine texted me last week to say he caught a bit of Corrie and thought I was very good. I pointed out that I wasn’t on screen yet!!

“When they approached me with the storyline It seemed like fate! What they’ve written is so clever and I’m having a ball working with Jane.”

The plotline starts on August 26th with a mix-up about a parcel collection. Bernie is collecting Joseph’s new school uniform when she is misidentified as Fern and sent home with a parcel meant for the other woman.

A riled Fern soon turns up at No.5 demanding her parcel and accusing Bernie of theft. The women are struck by how alike they are and the following week Fern offers Bernie a dodgy way of earning some money.

Gabrielle is no stranger to soap having played the part of Patricia Farnham in Brookside for five years between 1990-1995. She has also had roles in Doctors and Family Affairs while the role of Fern is her second in the ITV soap. She previously played Debs Brownlow – sister of Natalie Barnes (Denise Welch) – for nine months in 2000.

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