Corrie Blogger meets Corrie hero: interview with Chris Gascoyne

This is my final roundtable round-up following the Corrie Christmas press day that I went to last month. It was a perfect day, which ended with the actor who plays my all-time favourite Corrie character.

I arrived in Manchester wearing a black shirt and pea coat in homage to Peter Barlow, whose fashion sense I have defended time and time again on this Blog. I even posted a piece (here) about his love of snooker (and waistcoats) while on the train.

The Chris Gascoyne interview was the last of seven sessions. After keeping us waiting, he breezed in and instantly had the room in the palm of his hand. That charisma we see on screen is 100% GENUINE. 

Chris declared 2018 a good year, saying he has “really enjoyed” the work he has done. He also said he has “had a brilliant two and a half years back” at Corrie since Peter Barlow returned in 2016.

Naturally, the astounding four-hander episode from October was brought up. Chris explained that they filmed it at night when “it was really cold, it was raining… a lot of things go wrong”. Between 11 and 1, he “couldn’t remember a single line… because it was cold and we’d done it over and over and then all of a sudden your brain just shuts down. So, I was really surprised how good it was”.

He's being modest. It was one of the best episodes I’ve ever seen. Peter Barlow summed up his father’s failings and the entire human condition in a few beautiful lines of dialogue: “he’s flawed, yeah… but you show me somebody who isn’t. You show me somebody who doesn’t spend every day fighting the same temptations, trying not to walk into the same old traps they’ve set themselves years before.” It was pure poetry.

According to Chris, Peter is more at peace with Ken now than he ever has been. He understands him and has forgiven him, realising “it’s just how he is”. Peter is “mature enough to accept that”. Surely, Peter Barlow can’t finally be a grown up? Chris Gascoyne always likes to “think that he is… but then the writers don’t”. He went on to tease that we’ll be asking in 20 years, “has Peter grown up yet?” 

Chris feels that the relationship between Peter and Ken has changed and that they can “move on from that now”. But whether Peter will follow the trajectory of his Dad, the “man that never got away” is another matter. One thing that is certain is that Chris Gascoyne is really enjoying Peter’s current position within the Barlow family. In fact, he says, “it’s been more interesting for me these last two years than it ever has”. He is also excited by the next story block, which I can reveal some details about below. If you would rather not know, then this is your cue.

Talking of cues, I was gutted to learn that Peter’s dream of running Weatherfield Snookerhall comes to naught. With the New Year approaching, Carla and Peter will exorcise some demons over a tense snooker match in the disused hall. I’m talking ’85 World Championship final levels of tension.

You see, Peter will get the keys to the snooker club on Victoria Street and after some tomfoolery with Dev and Kirk over the place being haunted, Carla will try to convince him it’s a money pit. She will challenge Peter to a game of snooker. If she wins, he will have to walk away from the venture.

Little does Peter know that Carla is a decent player… not Ronnie O’Sullivan standard but maybe John Virgo on a good run of trick shots. Peter Barlow, however, is more of a Jimmy White figure – prodigious talent but terrible under pressure. The upshot of this is that the New Year’s Eve episode will see Peter and Carla play a gripping game of snooker with some puntastic dialogue from Peter.

They showed us a scene and Peter tries it on with “we always were a good match, me and you”. Carla lets him know that this is a cheesy line but responds with “I ballsed up too”. There is definitely still chemistry between them. So, will Peter and Carla be back together this Christmas?

“Well, sort of”, says Chris Gascoyne. He explained the snooker match, where Carla tells Peter, “If you lose, you have to sell this place because it’s horrible.” She beats him and he says, “Alright, you were right about this place”. 

It turns out that if the snooker club were to be a recurring location, then it would be as much of a money pit for ITV as it would be for Peter Barlow. The snooker scenes were filmed in a ‘Working Men’s Club’ in Salford, where clever camera angles turned one table into a full snooker hall. They had great fun filming, but it would be very expensive to go out on location regularly. A shame.

Anyway, Peter and Carla will find themselves “on their own on New Year’s Eve and they get very close”. But will they or won’t they? Chris would like to see Peter and Carla back together and thinks it will happen at some point. But he feels that the chase is more interesting for them than actually being together, at which point they get bogged down with domestic disputes like “who buys the teabags?” and “who does the cooking?”. I can’t imagine either of them slaving over a hot stove!

For Chris Gascoyne, it “looks like” Carla is 'the one' for Peter, or at least “that’s what the audience seems to have wanted”. However, he also thinks Peter still likes Leanne. It’s official: Chris Gascoyne is as confused over Carla and Leanne as Peter Barlow and the rest of us are! “Both the relationships are interesting”, he says, before doubting that “the Toyah thing will ever happen again” because of what happened with the baby. Leanne, however, “is always a possibility”.

In the hour-long episode on New Year’s Day, Peter will receive a very generous gift from Carla… a boat! Apparently, “you can kind of see why she does it” in the New Year’s Eve ep. It is a 25-foot boat called ‘The Lost Buoy’; a name that Chris jokes is “very romantic” … perfect for Peter.

Peter tells Simon that once he has restored the boat, he plans to sail it around the Caribbean and hopes that his son will go with him. So, Peter is going to be “really happy doing this boat up, but he’s doing it up to leave. He thinks he’s going to go”. 

When I read this in the press pack on the train up to Manchester, I feared Peter would be leaving Weatherfield once again. He sees the boat as “a way to be himself and leave”.  However, the sad thing is that it’s just a dream. Chris explains that Peter will work on this boat with the idea of “I’m going to do this up and I’m going to leave all this behind”. 

Everybody else will accuse Peter of having a midlife crisis, but Chris Gascoyne notes “he’s always had a crisis”. Maybe Peter really is turning into Ken?!! Rest assured, there will be a wisecrack about Ken wanting to leave it all behind for a life on the barge with Martha Fraser. In fact, Chris was about to film this line after speaking to us. Peter will tell Claudia all about Ken and the barge. If only Blanche was still around to call it a ‘tugboat’!

Peter’s boat is going to sit outside the factory and the Platt house, which will NOT go down well with Gail. It will bring Peter and Simon closer together. I asked if Peter is supportive of Simon’s plan to join the Navy. Yes, Peter “thinks it’s a good thing” and Chris notes “when you can’t get out of somewhere… a lot of lads join the forces”. With the Navy, “you see the world”. He went on to say that “Peter loved it” before reminding us that’s where “he met Keith Duffy… before Boyzone!”

At the moment, the New Year is “looking fantastic for Peter”, who believes “it’s all going to happen… this is it!” He’ll go around telling everybody “all you do is live to work. I don’t do that, I’m a free spirit.” Peter “thinks he’s got away from the rat race” but like his old man before him, there will always be something anchoring him to Coronation Street.

The boat will also bring Peter closer to somebody else and despite all the talk of Carla Vs Leanne; it looks like a new relationship could be around the corner. Chris told us that Peter does the boat up “to pristine condition with a certain person”. It is “a very unlikely person” who is currently in the show. Does anyone have any idea who it could be? I have a theory.

Of course, we can expect more rivalry between Nick and Peter. Chris says that Peter thinks Nick is “an OK Step-Dad” but basically that he’s a bit of a dick. I’m with you Peter! Because of Leanne, Peter “gets very jealous” … “he’s funny like that”. Peter still “thinks that he can still call the shots”.

Now, to the best of my recollection – although he has been tempted on both fronts – Peter has not succumbed to either of his two vices (booze/women) since his return. Chris Gascoyne floated a fascinating idea, that if the writers or he decided at some point in the future, that Peter’s time was up... then the storyline he’d like to act out would be for the drink to finally get the better of Peter. 

By his calculations, Peter has “already fallen off the wagon twice” so seriously that he nearly died. Chris reasons: “they always say that there are only three and he’s not got another one in him to recover from”. Therefore, if the writers wanted to revisit Peter’s alcoholism, perhaps because of something going wrong in his life… and it coincided with Chris deciding he was ready to leave for good – then he feels the story they’d have to do is where Peter “just basically drinks himself to death”.

Chris Gascoyne is absolutely not looking to leave Corrie and so this could be “five or ten years” from now, but it is a story he would like to play out, as it would “tie the whole thing up”. Chris appreciates it would not be a very nice story but as an actor, it “would be a brilliant storyline to play out” over the course of a year or two. I can’t think of it being done before. Chris feels that if something tragic were to happen to Peter, he probably would  “drink himself into oblivion”. 

On a cheerier note, I got to ask the last question of the interview. I asked Chris Gascoyne if there was a woman from Weatherfield’s past that he would have liked Peter to have had a romantic liaison with. The woman in question “would have made mincemeat of him” and “it would have been great”. Of course, it was Elsie Tanner. Pat Phoenix was Chris Gascoyne’s favourite. I reckon someone of Peter’s prowess could have handled Elsie… just about.

I managed to have a very brief chat with Chris Gascoyne after the interview. He is a TOP MAN. I told him that Peter Barlow is my favourite character and I also asked him about his role in the Adrian Mole TV adaptation. I wrote one of my favourite Corrie blogs about that. It's well worth a read here. I told Chris that he was the only actor in the entire series that could pull off an East Midlands accent. I think he agreed with me.

After a magical day at ITV Studios, Emma and I went for a couple of pints at Night & Day on Oldham Street. On the tram out of MediaCityUK, we offered our seats to Maureen Lipman but she politely declined and instead stood up chatting to passengers. It was a fittingly surreal moment to end on.

It feels like Christmas has come early for me and so that’s it from me for this year. I hope that all Coronation Street Blog writers, commentators and readers have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year… let’s hope that 2019 is a good year on the Cobbles. Like Peter Barlow – ever the optimist – I reckon it’s all going to happen. THIS IS IT.

By Martin Leay
Twitter @mpleay
Corrie Blogs @ bit.ly/corriemartin

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