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'Coronation Street' unveils doppelganger storyline after soap star is constantly mistaken for 'Brookside' actor

Jane Hazlegrove's double Gabrielle Glaister joins her in Coronation Street. (ITV)
Jane Hazlegrove's double Gabrielle Glaister joins her in Coronation Street. (ITV)

Coronation Street is introducing a doppelganger storyline inspired by one of its stars constantly being mistaken for a Brookside actor in real life.

Jane Hazlegrove who plays Bernie Winter suggested to writer Jonathan Harvey that they could have fun with a double for her character after realising that she looked exactly like Brookside and Blackadder actor Gabrielle Glaister.

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In fact, the pair look so similar that some of their Corrie co-stars have even stopped Glaister in the corridors at the soap's studios thinking that they were having a chat with Hazlegrove.

The storyline will see newcomer Fern (Glaister) try to rope Bernie into some dodgy dealings when she realises how alike they are.

Fern proposes a dodgy money-making scheme to Bernie. (ITV)
Fern proposes a dodgy money-making scheme to Bernie. (ITV)

Watch: Coming up on Coronation Street

Hazlegrove said: “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 so chuffed when they told me that they had devised this storyline and that Gabby was on board.

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“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 Glaister and Jane Hazlegrove as Fern and Bernie. (ITV)
Gabrielle Glaister and Jane Hazlegrove as Fern and Bernie. (ITV)

Glaister added that friends had even thought her Corrie stint has already begun when they saw Hazlegrove on screen: “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 storyline about Bernie's double will begin from 26 August when Bernie goes to collect a parcel of Joseph's school uniform, but is mistakenly given a package for Fern instead.

Fern comes to her house accusing her of theft, but when she realises the mix-up happened because they look so similar, the following week Fern offers Bernie a dodgy way of earning some money.