Coronation Street live hailed as ‘slick’ but viewers confused by sight of dead character breathing

*Spoiler alert* Some viewers were so engrossed in last night’s live episode their disbelief got a bit too suspended

Is Callum Logan really dead? Eagle-eye viewers say he was still breathing during live episode (ITV)

Coronation Street might have been praised by TV critics for pulling off last night’s emotionally-charged episode without mishap but viewers were still quick to point it out when they saw an allegedly dead character breathing beneath a bedsheet.

The cast of the long-running ITV soap executed the drama without making any mistakes in contrast to BBC1's EastEnders’ “How’s Adam?” gaffe during a live episode last May.

However, despite the Corrie cast’s success the sight of bad boy Callum Logan (Sean Ward) lying dead on the floor sent social media into a frenzy with eagle-eyed viewers commenting that they could see his chest rising and falling beneath the sheet that had been hastily draped over him.

The fact that Coronation Street is a fictitious soap opera and that the characters onscreen are played by actors appeared to pass some viewers by as they instead took the sight of Callum breathing as sign of a Game of Thrones-style “He’s not really dead!” conspiracy theory.

Kylie and David Platt hide Callum's body beneath the Cobbles (ITV)

Dastardly drug dealer Callum met his end towards the beginning of last night’s episode at the hand of erstwhile girlfriend and mother of his son Kyle Platt (Paula Lane) who walked in on him attacking her sister-in-law Sarah Louise (Tina O’Brien).

However, he is unlikely to resurface from beneath the Cobbles where David Platt (Jack P Shepherd) convinced Kylie and Sarah to bury him, despite viewers’ theories.

Ward confirmed that Callum is really dead in an interview. He said he’d known right from the start of his most recent contract that his character would be killed off dramatically but that he’d had to keep the plot details a closely guarded secret.

“Even though I had known a while that I would be leaving, I decided not to audition for other parts whilst still here as I didn’t want to be seen,” Ward told the Manchester Evening News.“I didn’t want to risk anybody knowing that I was leaving in case this led to people guessing Callum’s fate.”

TV critics roundly praised last night’s live episode for its faultlessness with the Radio Times calling it a “a very slick job” and the Guardian saying “technically, barely a foot was put wrong, save for a couple of entirely forgivable camera pans.”