This is my first blog since Anne Kirkbride
passed away. Like all of us, I was shocked and saddened to hear the news and my
condolences go out to her friends and family.
It is bittersweet that just a week before we
lost Anne, one of Coronation Street’s longest-running actors, I was in
Manchester meeting some of the newer recruits who will be at the centre of the
action in Corrie this year.
It all happened over pizza, bowling and karaoke (no pool) and
was as surreal as it sounds. I arrived at All Star Lanes in Deansgate and
was ushered into a room with a private bowling lane, loads of food and a free
bar with cocktails on tap. I stuck to a liquid dinner of Brooklyn Lager.
We were put into teams for an icebreaking
game in which I had to act out a classic scene in front of a load of Corrie
stars! I was pleased with my portrayal of Richard Hillman murdering Maxine
Peacock but sadly Corrie’s Casting Director was not there to see my work.
We were told we’d be able to interview the
cast members for the first hour, after which everyone would be ‘off duty’. It
was a bit of a free-for-all with the journos fighting to get their dictaphones in front of the most desirable faces first. It was fun to observe the scene and chat to people whenever an opportunity arose.
Sean Ward (Callum Logan) was in
particularly high demand. Female scribes were queuing up to get near him. I
didn’t get a look in, though he did say hello later on because he remembered me
from the roundtable interview at ITV Southbank last October – he’s a Top
Boy, Sean and his charisma is both undeniable and enviable.
There was going to be a bowling league, so
I was pleased Mary Taylor didn’t turn up. Down the alley, I hear she’s “a
cranker of some renown” – unbeaten in five years! Luke Britton is no stranger to
the lanes either, having recently taken Maria and Liam bowling. It was fitting
then that the first person I approached was Dean Fagan.
I’m a big fan of Luke and I’m pleased to
report that Dean is brilliant too. Before Corrie, he played Culture Club
bassist Mikey Craig in the 2010 BBC drama Worried About the Boy, which also
starred Douglas Booth and Mathew Horne and told the tale of Boy George starting
out in Showbiz. I remember watching it. He also did a few “bits and bobs” on
ITV and in theatre.
I asked about Kirk’s stag do, when Luke had
a one-man rave in Ty’s living room. Apparently, Dean got “a lot of flak” for
his dance moves, which were based on his mate who he DJs with. I told him I’d
just blogged about The Haçienda and mentioned Luke’s dancing. “I felt I was right
back there”, laughed Dean. Interestingly, Dean starred in a play about that
whole scene. It was called Manchester Sound: The Massacre and ran for a month
at the Library Theatre in 2013.
Dean explained how the play “compared the
Peterloo Massacre of Manchester to the Haçienda scene”. It brought together two
groups of idealists “trying to get out of the situation” they were in –
searching for utopia but suppressed by the establishment. The play correlated
the two eras (1819 and 1989) of Manchester’s history. Dean says, “it was a
complicated context but we somehow made it work”. It sounds fascinating - they should bring it back! Here is a little video about the play, featuring
Dean Anthony Fagan in the 80s clothes he might have worn to Beth and Kirk’s
wedding if only Maria had invited him...
Luke and Maria haven’t really gelled yet –
their dates keep going wrong and the bowling night is a case in point. Dean
describes it as “a square peg in a round hole sort of thing” but thinks “there
is something that connects them on a certain level”. Luke is quite young to
take on father-figure responsibilities for Liam but Dean believes “he wants to
prove himself as a mature man”. Although the backstory for Luke and Steph
hasn’t been filled in yet, Dean senses that perhaps “his dad wasn’t there”. Luke wants to be a responsible adult
– which maybe “hasn’t been taught to him by his Dad”.
Dean is a Manchester lad and although he had
done stuff before, Corrie was “the first job where (his) Mum and Dad shouted
down the phone”. He is pleased with the reaction Luke has received. “He’s a
nice guy – he’s just a lad, basically. He gets on with his job… he’s a
relateable character and I hope that’s how he’s perceived”. That is certainly
why I like Luke.
I thought it would have been brilliant for
Luke’s street cred if the motormouth mechanic had gone through with the Carla
Connor fling. “He could have done it”, says Dean – although I suspect the fact
he didn’t says much more about Luke’s character than if he had. “It show a
different dimension”, agrees Dean. Luke is one of my favourite new characters
and Dean Fagan was a really top bloke.
Next up I chatted to Tisha Merry, who plays
Luke’s on-screen sister, Steph. Tisha was lovely and Steph is another brilliant
addition to The Street. Before Corrie, Tisha was in a BBC drama set on another
street – 32 Brinkburn Street. She also did a few plays and short films. But
with Corrie, she beams, “this is the big one – it’s very exciting”.
I love Steph’s P.M.A. approach to life. However,
I put it to Tisha that she works far too hard. Nick “runs her ragged!” she laughs.
I was keen to know whether Steph and Andy are in it for the long haul. Tisha
likes Steph’s ability to empathise and the fact “she can separate herself from
things and help people out”. She seems to be standing by her man who is not actually
the man she thought he was.
Going back to Beth and Kirk’s wedding,
there was a strange scene where Steph walked along the street dressed in a shell suit type number. It was very late 80s but Steph wasn’t going to the
wedding! Tisha clarified this is Steph’s “gym/workout outfit” and she was on
her way to V Court Fitness. She wore it in the cricket episode too. Tisha says
she “would never wear” much of what lies in Steph Britton’s wardrobe but she
picks out clothes that she feels fit the character.
It is always interesting to hear what it is
like for someone new to The Street to go through the life-changing experience
of being recognised wherever they go. “It’s really bizarre and I cannot get
used to it”, says Tisha… but it is “fabulous” to receive positive feedback from
fans. She must have received a lot of that since joining the show.
Equally lovely to talk to was the resplendent
Sair Khan (Alya Nazir) who I bumped into at the bar. Earlier that afternoon, I
had seen the crash episodes at a preview screening and one thing that caught my
eye was how sparkly Alya’s dress was. Sair loved that outfit and feels it was “the
perfect choice to dress her a bit more traditionally but with such a modern
twist”. She sees Alya as “a girl who holds her culture and family very close
to her heart”. And as a student of Fashion and Business, you wouldn’t catch
Alya Nazir in something off the High Street!
It must have been cold during filming, though,
because Alya was the only one not wearing a coat in the back of that bus. Sair
didn’t want to cover up the dress but “really regretted that by day three in
the freezing cold doing night shoots!”
Alya is young and ambitious and is
certainly putting Sally Webster’s nose out of joint at the factory. I wonder if
she will ever reach the upper echelons of management at Underworld. “She wants
to own a business one day”, says Sair… “She wants to make her family proud”. The
Awards Ceremony was “a symbol of her doing well at her job… helping to organise
this big event”. Sadly, they never got there.
It was nice to hear that Sair is a massive fan
of Corrie, which she thinks helped in her audition. She says “I knew who was
who, I knew what was what and I knew what soaps are like”. Sometimes Sair wants
Alya to be friends with characters that she really likes – Sally, for example –
but says, “it’s fun being put against each other and fighting for this role at
Underworld”.
I like Gary but am curious to understand
why the terrible deed of breaking into Roy’s Rolls helped him win his way back
into Alya’s affections. Sair reasons that “human beings are so complex…
sometimes when you meet someone you can’t help that you like them”. She enjoys
the fact it’s “a bit of a Romeo and Juliet scenario” of “two people that are
from different worlds together… and it’s working”.
I had a brief chat with Qasim Akhtar who is
a lot easier going than Zeedan Nazir! I remember Qasim from Shameless, the
brilliant comedy-drama series set on a fictional council estate in Manchester.
Corrie is “a bit different from Shameless”, he jokes – and he’s not wrong!
Although, that said, I reckon Callum and his mates on the Paul Robeson Estate
could handle themselves on the Chatsworth Estate.
Soap “wasn’t really the road (he) wanted to
go down”, but the role of Zeedan came along and after reading the script and meeting
everyone involved, Qasim says, “I fell in love with it and I just knew it was
for me”.
As Anna Windass pointed out in the café
recently, Zeedan and Gary got on like a house on fire before the whole Alya
thing. Their falling out “kind of annoyed” Qasim because he and Mikey North
“had some good banter on and off screen”. He is hopeful though they will “bring
it back together somehow”. He told me there is a storyline coming up at the
builders’ yard with Zeedan and Tony, which “adds fuel to the fire” of Kal and
Tony’s feud.
Next up was Oliver Farnworth, who we now
know portrays Andy Carver rather than Gavin Rodwell. Oliver told me his Corrie contract
is ongoing and he is currently signed up for a year. The public has warmed to
this Andy guy. Oliver believes viewers have “been allowed to be onside from
early on because they’ve been let into his lie”. He hopes Andy is “not a bad
person” but someone who is “in a terrible set of circumstances and has started
feeling for people around him”.
“We’ll see how long it runs”, he says.
Essentially, Andy doesn’t want to harm the
guy who isn’t his Dad. Oliver finds the current limbo interesting and hopes
that, dramatically, “there is a lot of mileage in it”. When the real Gavin
Rodwell emerges, I can’t help but think we’ll have another Ryan Connor scenario
on our hands, and Michael will stick with the son he has come to love.
Oliver Farnworth has been in Hollyoaks and
has done lots of theatre but his last TV role before Corrie was the second
series of Mr Selfridge. He played a Belgian refugee and regards it as “a turning
point” in his career. He worked closely with Amanda Abbington (who played Miss
Mardle) and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. He says, “She is an actor who I
would aspire to be like in the future… I think she’s absolutely brilliant”.
Oliver is also full of praise for his current
co-star, Les Dennis. Oliver admires his old school work ethic of “turn
up, know your lines, do the job to the best you can and get on
with it”. He observes, “the real, true, stars are the ones who on the first day
go hiya mate, do you want a cup of tea?” With Les Dennis, he says, “it’s a
level playing field and that to me was quite humbling”.
I also had a good chat with Daniel
Brocklebank and was very impressed with the research he has carried out to
enhance his portrayal of Billy the Vicar. He did this entirely of his own volition
because as a gay man himself, he wanted to find out what might lead Billy – who
we are to believe, has ‘lived’ – towards the Church.
Daniel has therefore spoken to a number of gay
clergymen. I suggested he should have a word with Reverend Richard Coles, the
former Communard who inspired the BBC Two sitcom Rev. It will
be interesting to learn more about Billy’s history. He was enthusing to Sean about
Berlin techno clubs the other night, so he must have hit it hard before finding
God. There is a lot of potential for Billy and Sean and I look forward to
seeing how it develops.
Unfortunately, I had to leave before the end
of the night to get back to that London. I walked out of All Star Lanes and
could see photographers waiting in the cold to snap some of Corrie’s newest stars. They must have been disappointed to see me!
The world of Weatherfield will certainly be
poorer for Deirdre Barlow’s absence and it is sad to think that older Corrie
characters will not be on our screens forever. However, Coronation Street –
like life itself – moves on and it is entirely realistic that the people who make up a
community will change over time.
The Corrie top brass have put a lot of
faith in the ‘new generation’ over the last year or so. It was brilliant to
meet many of these new actors and learn how much it means to them to be
starring in our favourite show. I believe that the future is bright at
Coronation Street.
By Martin Leay
Twitter: @mpleay
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