STEVE McDonald begs Leanne Battersby to let their son Oliver die next week in Coronation Street after the devastated mother launches an appeal to save him.
The parents launched a legal battle last month in the ITV soap to give them time to find a cure for Oliver, who has been diagnosed with an incurable form of mitochondrial disease which will eventually take his life.
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Steve and Leanne’s plight to save their son is pushing away their loved ones, who all seem to agree that the parents are fighting a losing battle.
Sure enough, the court will rule this week that Oliver’s life support should be switched off so that his suffering isn’t prolonged.
But Leanne will remain in denial about her son and decide she’s going to launch an appeal – much to the horror of Steve who tells her it’s time to let him go.
Next week’s episodes of Coronation Street will see Imran warn Steve that he needs to be fully on board.
Later, Leanne tries her best to persuade Steve to change his mind, but Steve continues to beg Leanne to drop the appeal.
Will he manage to persuade her to let Oliver go?
Emma and Tracy later support Steve, sharing their memory box idea with Amy in the hope that it’ll cheer Steve up.
Speaking to What’s On TV, actress Jane Danson – who plays Leanne – said she is ‘proud’ of the storyline.
She explained: “From a creative point of view, I’ll probably never get a story as strong and as powerful as this again. It has been such a gift of a story to explore, and an honour to be trusted with something so delicate.”
She added: “In terms of logistics [because of the pandemic], it has been quite difficult, working in a way in which we can’t have physical contact, and can’t have children on set as much as we’d like. So that has been hard, but we have got used to it.
“Being in a hospital for 12 hours a day, talking about a dying child, is pretty heavy, but we’ve balanced it with lighter moments.
“We’ve all tackled this knowing that it’s a real story that happens to real families, so we owe it to them to tell it as truthfully as we can.
“Obviously, we’ve had the twisty soap elements mixed in, but in terms of a story about Oliver’s illness, we’re really proud of what we’ve been able to do during such strange times.”
