I’ve storylined many soap murder mysteries – this is where Coronation Street went wrong with big Sarah reveal

Out of all the suspects, Sarah was the only one who wasn’t actually a suspect. (Picture: ITV)

There’s a golden rule to plotting a whodunnit – play fair with your audience. Based on my decade of experience as a writer in British soap, Coronation Street just broke that rule.

I’ve killed more people than I care to remember.

Don’t panic, all my victims have been fictional. Most of them took place in Hollyoaks, where a killer strikes almost as often as Warren Fox (Jamie Lomas) glowers at someone.

Many a sleepless Friday night I spent in the story office, scrutinising over the plan for ‘Who Killed Amy Barnes?’ alongside the other storyliners.

The hours we spent going back and forth over who should be the killer – Harry Thompson (Parry Glasspool) or Duncan from Blue – as the pizza we ordered started to congeal still haunt my dreams today.

Writing murder is a bit like real thing – it’s exhausting, meticulous, and you learn how to improve every time you get away with it.

Coronation Street DID get away with it – at least, at first.

Not only did they keep the killer of Weatherfield’s most sinister scaffolder Theo Silverton (James Cartwright) under wraps for months, but they hid the identity of the victim too. Teasing the kill with a flash-forward of Betsy Swain discovering the body at Swarla’s wedding was a master stroke, whetting the audience’s appetite and keeping them glued to their screen.

But the truly genius move was putting a target on the backs of Weatherfield’s biggest baddies and keeping fans guessing over which one will die. This wasn’t merely a Whodunnit – it was a Whogonnagetdun.

True, ramping up every villain’s story in time for Murder Night did give us all touch of bad guy fatigue, but it was worth it for what came next.

‘This wasn’t merely a Whodunnit – it was a Whogonnagetdun’ – Picture (ITV)

Even once Theo lay slain on the Cobbles, the momentum didn’t drop. Todd Grimshaw (Gareth Pierce), one of Corrie’s greatest A-listers, stood accused of bumping off his abusive, raging narcissist of a husband.

Then there were Todd’s closest friends, who saw him suffer in silence at his tormenter’s hands – his boss and mentor George Shuttleworth (Tony Maudsley), his partner Christina Boyd (Amy Robbins) , and Summer Spellman (Harriet Bibby), the closest thing Todd’s got to a daughter. Since Theo left her adoptive dad Billy Mayhew to die, Summer had her own axe to grind against the monster.

It wasn’t just Todd’s nearest and dearest who were under suspicion. Theo’s ex bestie Gary Windass (Mikey North) hated his guts enough to smash up his van with a sledgehammer, and the abuser’s scorned ex-wife Danielle Silverton (Natalie Anderson).

It should have been one of these guys! (Picture: ITV)

Six suspects. Usually for a whodunnit, you want around three to five so as not to over complicate things. But block-by-block storytelling came into its own here, shining the spotlight on one character each week while setting up the next one.

Then came all that glorious post-killing aftermath where the suspects slowly start to turn on each other: the backbiting, the paranoia, accusations, secrets and lies. All good stuff that gives any storyliner enough material to fill the story board for at least three months.

Frankly, if the murderer had been any of the Killer Six, I’d be writing a very different article.

Except it wasn’t any of them. It was Sarah Platt.

Nobody suspected Sarah – because nobody told us to. (Picture: ITV)

Let me start by playing Devil’s advocate and pointing out the positives to this decision.

Sarah Platt is soap royalty. A Cobbles Queen with a massive fanbase earned from years of standout stories. Sarah could berate Roy Cropper (David Nielson) and steal his lunch money and everyone would still cheer for her.

Partly because Tina O’Brien is an outstanding actress with a proven track record of bringing the most challenging and emotionally demanding stories to life.

Mainly because Sarah’s an everywoman. The girl next door. We saw her grow up on those Cobbles. We grew up with her. We’d forgive her anything, especially bumping off her bestie’s toxic partner.

So why was making Sarah the murderer a mistake? Remember that golden rule…

Play fair with your audience.

The fun of a murder mystery is in the guessing. People can deal with being wrong. What they don’t like is being misled.

If all your photos, press releases and adverts suggest that one of six suspects is the killer, then one of those suspects should be the killer. Throwing a rogue culprit in there at the eleventh hour robs the viewer of the simple human pleasure of saying ‘See? Told you it was them all along!’

Look no further than ‘Who Killed Lucy Beale?’, EastEnders’ most famous Whodunnit. Thirteen could be-killers in the line up, and the guilty party turns out to be Bobby Beale.

The one person nobody suspected because we weren’t told to suspect him, thus driving a coach and horses through a ten month marketing campaign and turning countless beloved Albert Square residents into unlikeable accomplices. For what? A big shock twist that came out of nowhere.

Until now, Sarah’s pretty much done everything except murder, which means the Theo revelation raises some questions about her past. Why didn’t she bump off her criminal lowlife boyfriend Callum Logan? Or the paedophile that sex-trafficked her daughter, Nathan Curtis? Or her other criminal lowlife boyfriend Damon?

If Sarah’s capable of taking a life, shouldn’t it be in a story of her own, not as a supporting character in someone else’s?

This brings us neatly to our next rule.

Always work backwards. Decide who the murderer is right from the off, and make that seem glaringly obvious in hindsight.

Don’t get me wrong. I know all too well the temptation not to commit to a murderer and hedge your bets, or change horses mid race if an even better idea comes along. There’s been a few times in my career where there was a lot of second guessing about who the murderer should be and whether we’d made the right choice.

There’s a temptation to work this way if you are waiting to be wowed by the best of all options. Just scattergun various clues and red-herrings evenly for all your suspects, and it looks like you knew what you were doing all along, right?

Sarah loves Todd… but would she actually kill for him? (Picture: ITV)

Nope. The audience knows. They always know. No matter how clever you think you’re being, there’s always some clever clogs with a Beautiful Mind style whiteboard in their garage, ready to point out your plot holes. You can’t change that. So don’t second guess yourself. Choose your culprit and stand by them ride or die.

If the plan was for Sarah to be the murderer from day one, then she should have been threaded throughout the story and in all the press photos side by side Todd like the A-lister she is.

She wasn’t with Todd during the Corriedale crash when he lost Billy. She didn’t have anything like as many confidante scenes with him as George did, or Summer.

Prior to Theo’s death, her major contribution to the story was being the one who convinced Gary that his best mate was actually making Todd’s life a living hell behind closed doors. Yes, she’s had a few heart-to-hearts with Todd as ex to ex throughout the ordeal. And her close relationship with her bestie could drive her to murder.

But it’s not as strong a motive as Summer has, who lost her stepdad to the evil so-and-so, or George, the nicest Undertaker in Manchester forced to take a life in order to protect the closest thing he’s got to a son.

Then comes the final and most heartbreaking rule of the Whodunnit.

The stakes are life and death. Accept the consequences.

Murderers go to prison. Hot take, I know. Especially when their victims are absolute wrong’uns like Theo. But you’ll be amazed how many times we writers try to avoid the consequences to keep our favourite characters on screen and likeable.

I’m just as guilty as anyone. When I pitched ‘Who Shot Mercedes McQueen’ at long term conference, it was an instant crowd pleaser. A murder mystery which put Dee Valley’s leading lady at the very heart of a story filled with twists and turns. It didn’t occur to me to think about what happened at the end of the story. I forgot the second rule.

Shooting a big star like Mercedes needs big consequences. (Picture: Lime Pictures)

The end result was that neither of the shooters – Grace Black (Tamara Wall) and James Nightingale (Gregory Finnegan) – faced any lasting consequences aside from blackmail, extortion and the word’s scariest dinner party courtesy of Liam Donovan (Jude Monk-McGowan).

Quite right too. We couldn’t have two popular cast members like James and Grace stewing in a cell for who knows how long.

The same is true for Sarah.

Unless Tina O’Brien is taking a five year holiday, Sarah’s unlikely to face serious prison time for this crime. So what will the consequences be?

My guess is they will come from her boyfriend, DS Kit Green (Jacob Roberts). The writers clearly wanted us to wonder whether Sarah was doing the dirty on the Cobbles copper with none other than her ex, Gary.

He’s already eager to slap the handcuffs on the kinda-reformed badboy for Theo’s murder.

Now that drama and secrets have been served at the dinner party from hell, perhaps Kit will revert back to bent copper mode and do anything to make sure the man who’s grown so close to his girlfriend is out of the picture for good. And it seems Gary’s partner Maria won’t be too chuffed either.

The secret exploded over dinner (Picture: ITV)

So in other words, expect some bitter infighting between her, Kit, Gary, Maria and Todd, who will be horrified that his best not only killed his husband, but let people think it was him.

It’s plotty for sure, but is it as good as George the Undertaker killing Theo in a crime of passion and Christine begging him to keep quiet?

Or a terrified Summer being the killer?

I say this not as a critic of Coronation Street, but as a lifelong fan.

Its countless stories have kept me glued to the screen since I was a nipper, and the Theo saga is no exception. Every mystery needs a good villain. To solve the mystery and win the day, the characters need to be smarter than that villain.

But they shouldn’t try to be smarter than the audience.

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