Coronation Street’s iconic actress Helen Worth has decided to step away from her role as much-loved Gail Platt after 50 years as the soap airs a montage of her 50 years on screen

Coronation Street has released an emotional montage of clips of Gail Platt’s momentous 50 years on screen.

Actress Helen Worth has decided to bow out of the long running ITV soap this Christmas. Her final episodes will air over the festive break as viewers prepare to bid farewell to the iconic character. In emotional scenes, Gail will face some big revelations that leave her questioning her whole life.

Gail’s last time on screen will be Christmas Day and Helen has already wrapped filming. Ahead of the episodes hitting the screen, Coronation Street have shared a video of Gail’s most memorable moments. The montage was specially created for Helen’s leaving party last month.

Helen has been part of Coronation Street for 50 years

There wasn’t a dry eye in the Bistro as Helen, cast and crew enjoyed the many highlights of her 50 years in the show. The soap has decided to share the video with its viewers so they can also relive some of the classic moments that made Gail one of the most iconic characters in the show’s history.

It documented her arrival in Weatherfield in 1974, her many weddings, troublesome children and grandchildren, almost being murdered by Richard Hillman, fighting in the Street with arch nemesis Eileen, her complex relationship with mum Audrey and her famous monologue after Aidan’s suicide.

Speaking of her decision to bow out, Helen said: “This year felt like the perfect time to leave the show after celebrating 50 years in the most wonderful job on the most wonderful street in the world. I made the decision at the start of the year and spoke to the producers who were very kind and understanding.

The actress has decided to step away from her role as Gail Platt

“I have been truly blessed to have been given the most incredible scripts week in week out, and to have worked with fantastic actors, directors and a brilliant crew. The past 50 years have flown by and I don’t think the fact that I am leaving has quite sunk in yet.” Ahead of Gail’s final scenes, Corrie boss Kate Brooks has offered a tease to fans.

She said: “This is a story with the Platts at the heart of it, it’s really festive, basically it’s a story about family and how secrets impact and implode on a family, so there’s a lot of betrayals, lots of secrets are exposed during this episode and it will like classic Corrie with a bit of a twist.

“I think we’re all in need of a bit of escapism at the minute and we’ve had quite a dark but brilliant few months on the cobbles. The Christmas period for us is all about trying to tap into the family dynamics of the Platts, what makes people tick and ultimately trying to make sure that we give glorious Gail the exit that she deserves.”

Her final scenes will air on Christmas Day

Kate added: “She’s been such an icon on the street for such a long time – 50 years of television, which is amazing – and we can’t tell a story on Christmas Day about her exit without it feeling and being steeped in nostalgia, and there’s tons of nostalgia in this episode and hopefully people will be crying, they’ll be laughing, there’ll be gasps as people watching it go, ‘Oh my goodness, that’s just happened’ but yeah, old school Corrie but just with a real modern twist and I think people will really really enjoy it.”

Giving fans a tease, she said: “All those secrets come to the forefront on Christmas Day, so you basically have Gail, who’s going to leave the street, in the run-up to Christmas she has found out that some of her nearest and dearest have absolutely betrayed her, she doesn’t know who to believe, even her dear old mum has kind of lied to her and she really struggles with that and she’s a bit like ‘I don’t know whether I want this, I don’t know whether I want to be with Jesse’, she contemplates and questions everything and every decision she’s ever made, and obviously Gail has had a really colourful past so that’s a big part of that Christmas Day episode, but she is there and she is going to leave the street and it’s going to be so wonderful and sad.”