‘Coronation Street’ bosses have banned real needles on the soap’s factory set.
Producers are so concerned about health and safety regulations that they’ve told the cast members whose characters work in Underworld that they’ll have to pretend to stitch up knickers because they’re not "trusted" with the sharp sewing tool.
Jennie McAlpine – who plays Fiz Stape in the long-running soap – told The Sun newspaper: "The directors and the producers don’t trust us with needles because we talk so much, so we don’t actually have needles in any of those machines as a rule. When the time comes and they are needed, we have a man who comes in and puts the needles in the machines, and we have to have a health and safety briefing. It’s quite right though, because we’d be a nightmare if we had needles in all the time. Can you imagine, with all that gossiping, and then we went to use the machines to sew? I think we’d be sewing our fingers together all the time – there would be blood everywhere."
The flame-haired actress has been on the soap for over 15 years and, while reflecting n her time on the programme, recently admitted some of her favourite scenes were with Graeme Hawley, who played her murdering husband John Stape.
Documenting her character’s ups and downs, she said last year: "Alan [Halsall, who plays Tyrone] will not be happy as we don’t mention any exes but I absolutely adored working with Graeme. I loved that story and nobody knew how far it would run.
"It’s one of the three milestones that changed Fiz as a person. She got married and had a baby with John and all the horrendousness that went with it, then her surrogate mum Hayley died in front of her almost. Before that she witnessed Tyrone being a victim of domestic violence. Later she became like a mum to his little girl Ruby."
Coronation Street bosses ban needles on set
