Ex-Corrie stars join Doctor Doolittle stage show

Brian Capron (Richad Hillman) and Vicky Entwistle (Janice Battersby) are joining the cast of the stage show Doctor Doolittle.

Brian Capron joins the show from 9 November – 4 May as Albert Blossom/Straight Arrow and Vicky plays Polynesia the Parrott!

Based on the popular 1967 film with Rex Harrison, this new stage version is brought to you from the producers of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and promises stunning visual puppetry and fun for all the family.

You can find out more here.

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Richard Hillman returns to haunt Gail in Coronation Street

ITV Coronation Street have today released details on a storyline that, to this fan, sounds like it has the potential to be a great deal of fun.

Gail Rodwell is to get a shock when her serial killer hubby Richard Hillman comes back from the dead - via a psychic medium.

Sophie Thompson has been cast as quirky medium Rosemary who meets Audrey when she visits her salon and convinces her she has been contacted by her late husband Alf.

Gail is dismissive of Rosemary and her ‘gift’ and warns Audrey to be careful but it isn’t long before Rosemary says she is getting messages from Gail’s dead husbands.

Sophie will first appear on screen in mid March and Gail becomes keen to find out just what her late husbands, including Richard want to tell her.

A Corrie spokesperson said: “Sophie is a superb actress and perfect for the role of Rosemary, we are excited she is joining the cast and working alongside Helen and Sue. Gail and Audrey are convinced she is getting messages from Alf and Gail’s husbands. It remains to be seen if she is all she claims to be.”

Sadly, Brian Capron will not be returning as Richard but you can read all about the killer reign of Richard Hillman on Coronation Street. Or as we all like to call him, Norman Bates with a Briefcase.  You can buy the book here.

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Gail, Audrey and the Eddie Stobart game

I was on my way home recently when I spotted an Eddie Stobart lorry with the name of “Gail Audrey”. Surely, this truck must have been named in homage to the Corrie characters, I thought?

After all, we know that Gail is a Stobart spotter. In this wonderful scene from October 2012, a dozen road hauliers’ wives turn up at the Bistro for a Sunday roast and Gail reveals that they used to play “the Eddie Stobart game” in the Tilsley/Platt/Hillman/McIntyre/Rodwell family:

“It used to make long journeys fly by”, says Gail before recalling how they counted forty-eight on that last trip to Cromer. I can relate to this. When I was a kid, we did a lot of motorway driving and one way to make the time go slightly faster was to count how many Eddie Stobart lorries we would see on any given journey - just as the Platts did on the way to Cromer. 

There was never a road trip that went by without clocking at least one of the iconic trucks in Brunswick green and Post Office red. Each lorry is christened with female names painted on the front. For example, “Rebecca Emily”, “Eleanor Joanne” or indeed, “Gail Audrey”. Part of the fun is looking for the name.

Eddie Stobart is a national institution and believe it or not, the company has a fan club with 30,000 members. There are many Stobart spotters out there and according to the book ‘Eddie Stobart: The Ultimate Guide to the British Trucking Legends’, famous spotters include Corrie’s Alan Halsall (Tyrone Dobbs) and Simon Gregson (Steve McDonald) and also Suranne Jones (Karen McDonald) and Brian Capron (Gail’s husband, Richard Hillman).

Now that Corrie has a much bigger set at Trafford Wharf, with the street twice as wide as previously, I reckon there is scope for a storyline that sees the Gail Audrey truck drive along the cobbles. Perhaps once Underworld is back up and running, the Connors will need some help with logistics and warehousing.

I can see it now… Gail Audrey pulls up outside the factory and is seen by Roy Cropper the Stobart Spotter on his way back from the Cash and Carry. Roy immediately jots down the name and number plate (KX16 FLN) before scuttling off to tell Gail and Audrey about his sighting. 

Audrey isn’t bothered but Gail is delighted by the coincidence and forces her way into the driver’s cab to take a closer look and get her hands on the dinky little curtains. Scriptwriters - I’m available.

By Martin Leay, on Twitter @mpleay

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Listen: Brian Capron Reveals Richard Hillman Secrets

Brian Capron, who played the wonderful Richard Hillman in Coronation Street, has been interviewed by Matthew Rolland.  It's an excellent interview and Brian reveals a few Coronation Street secrets about playing the murdering Richard Killer Hillman too.

Brian tells Matthew Rolland that he signed up to Coronation Street for only six months at the start. But then a new producer came into the show who saw something special in the character of Richard Hillman and decided to put him into the spotlight.

Richard Hillman's storyline had so many twists and turns in it, Brian says. "He was a complex character and a lovely character to play, he genuinely loved his family, I found him fascinating,"

With Richard Hillman capturing the imagination of the writers and the audience, Corrie's ratings shot up and some of the programmes were seen by 20 million people. "It was a nice little boost to my career," he says. And he said that because Richard Hillman was so well known, when he left the show, he became known as the guy people wanted to put on theatre posters as so many people recognised him from TV.

He said he was delighted to see Tina O'Brien back as Sarah Platt in Corrie, and always calls in to see his ex-colleagues when he's up in Manchester.  But he said that he feels the new street is colder than the old one and he's sad that the old street has been torn down.

Brian is currently starring on stage in a play called Strictly Murder written by Brian Clemens, who wrote Dad's Army
You can listen to the full interview here.  Brian Capron starts speaking at 26 minutes in.

Follow Matt Rolland on twitter: @MattRolland93

And if you'd like to know more about the life of Richard Hillman on Coronation Street, it's all wrapped up in this great book - Norman Bates with a Briefcase.

Brian Capron wrote the foreword to the book.

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Strictly Corrie Dancing

As Strictly Come Dancing returns to TV here's a reminder of 2015's s fab-u-lous blog post by @Merseytart. It's all about Coronation Street stars who have been strictlified...

With the announcement that little Katy Armstrong is about to don twelve inches of fake tan and a diamante thong to appear on Strictly Come Dancing, I thought it would be an ideal time to look back at previous Coronation Street stars who've braved the ballroom.

For the first few years, there were no Corrie stars on the show, and there still haven't been any current cast members shaking their groove thang on the dance floor.  For some reason ITV isn't keen on letting its soap stars have time off to appear on one of the glittering stars in the BBC's firmament; can't think why.  Shame, because who wouldn't want to see Rita or Gail doing a samba to Ooh Stick You? In fact, the first Coronation Street actor to appear on the show hadn't even been on Corrie yet.

Jill Halfpenny - Series Two

AKA: medical strumpet Rebecca Hopkins.

Professional Partner: Darren Bennett

Eliminated: WINNER!

Strictly Journey: I completely forgot that Jill Halfpenny was in Corrie - I remember her mainly from Byker Grove, because I'm ancient - but Strictly blogging legend Chris Rubery (aka the Monkseal) pointed out my error on Twitter so I had to do a quick re-edit of this post mere moments after pressing "publish".  Jill, of course, won the show, and has since gone on to be spoken of in hushed tones as Queen Of All Things Strictly.  Jill Halfpenny is the winner of all winners, a sainted dance legend, and so we'll just forget the fact that she broke up Martin and Gail's marriage, the TART.

Will Thorp - Series Three

AKA: Chris Gray, tedious wife batterer.

Professional Partner: Hanna Haarala

Eliminated: Week Six.

Strictly Journey: sadly, Will's appearance pre-dates both my interest in the show and YouTube so I was unable to review his performance.  However, he was eliminated ahead of middle aged BBC Breakfast legend Bill Turnbull so I don't think he was the new Fred Astaire.

Ray Fearon - Series Four

AKA: Nathan Cooper, mechanic and one-time sexual plaything of Tracy Barlow.

Professional Partner: Camilla Dallerup

Eliminated: Week Six.

Strictly Journey: again, YouTube is not our friend, and the only footage I could find was a grainy video of the male contestants doing a group dance.  Ray seemed to be a big fan of the "stand still while the professional twiddles around you" dancing which usually means a duffer.

Claire King - Series Four

AKA: current resident cougar Erica Holroyd.

Professional Partner: Brendan Cole

Eliminated: Week Eight.

Strictly Journey:  Claire danced like a stripper in need of her rent money and had absolutely no compunction about steaming up the camera lens with filth.  Also, she hated Brendan, leading to a prickly relationship on the floor.  Pretty fantastic all round, really.

Brian Capron - Series Five

AKA: Norman Bates with a Briefcase, Richard Hillman

Professional Partner: Karen Hardy

Eliminated: Week One.

Strictly Journey: see above.  I assume Brian was dancing in character as the recently revived zombie corpse of Richard Hillman, and that was why he lumbered around with no sense of rhythm or movement.  It was actually painful watching him clatter round the dance floor.

Stephanie Beacham - Series Five

AKA: canal-based trollop Martha Fraser.

Professional Partner: Vincent Simone

Eliminated: Week Two.

Strictly Journey: A legendary diva like La Beacham insists on looking her best at all times.  Presumably that's why she danced so timorously: she was afraid of messing up her hair.  She was mostly fabulous offscreen, barking her opinions on her fellow dancers on It Takes Two.

Craig Kelly - Series Seven

AKA: forgettable factory manager Luke Strong.

Professional Partner: Flavia Cacace

Eliminated: Week Eight.

Strictly Journey: Blackpool-born Craig (he was from Blackpool) made great mileage out of the fact that he really wanted to perform in the Tower Ballroom during the traditional Blackpool week.  In fact, Blackpool-born Craig couldn't seem to talk about anything else, and the viewers clearly took pity on him, letting him stay on the show far longer than more qualified contestants so they could give him the chance to cha-cha-cha in the home of British ballroom.  Then they promptly voted him out, because the Great British Public will only take so much.

Tina O'Brien - Series Eight 

AKA: pocket sized irritant Sarah-Louise Platt.

Professional Partner: Jared Murillo

Eliminated: Week Five

Strictly Journey: at first it looked like tiny Tina could be a whizz on the dance floor.  Unfortunately, her daughter caught chickenpox during her time on the show, leading (a) to her mind understandably being on other things and (b) Tina herself catching the pox and having to miss out one week.  The following week she was back but she was kind of beat and frankly sending her home was a relief for everyone.

Jimi Mistry - Series Eight

AKA: recently flame grilled gym owner Kal Nazir.

Professional Partner: Flavia Cacace

Eliminated: Week Six

Strictly Journey: back when he was still "Hollywood star Jimi Mistry", he looked like a shoo-in for the final.  He'd shown his dance skills off already in The Guru and he was a charming chap.  It was therefore a SHOCK! BOOT! when he went out in week six, losing out to the frankly bonkers (in a good way) Michelle Williams.  Still, he got a wife and child out of the experience, so he probably couldn't care less.

Debra Stephenson - 2011 Christmas Special

AKA: crypto-incestuous Cockney Frankie Baldwin.

Professional Partner: Ian Waite

Eliminated: it was a Christmas special, so there was nothing as cruel as an elimination; Debra came second in the judges' rankings.

Strictly Journey: Debra insisted on miming along to the lyrics of Baby It's Cold Outside as she danced, which is just annoying, but she acquitted herself admirably and actually got the same number of points (37) as Charlie "Janine from EastEnders" Brooks.  Charlie was declared the winner though.  Was it because the Beeb would rather award the win to one of their own instead of an upstart from the commercial channel?  I couldn't possibly comment.  (Yes).

Natalie Gumede - Series Eleven 

AKA: her who belted Tyrone with the hoover nozzle - Kirsty Soames.

Professional Partner: Artem Chigvintsev

Eliminated: Finalist (so let's say she came second, because let's face it she was better than Susannah Reid)

Strictly Journey: a long-limbed dance icon, Natalie strode her way across the dance floor with aplomb, and probably should have won.  A week off due to illness and the public's lingering unwillingness to vote for a psychopath who'd beaten up poor Tyrone meant that she was unfairly denied the glitterball.  Also, in the final, she claimed to have "touched the divine" on the dance floor, which is the greatest way to describe fannying about to a C-grade version of And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going I have ever heard.  SHE WAS ROBBED, is what I'm saying.

BONUS: Tupele Dorgu - Strictly African Dancing

AKA: mouthy Underworld legend Kelly Crabtree

Strictly Journey: part of the BBC's Africa season in 2005, Tupele was roped into performing traditional dances with an African troupe.  She lost the crown to footballer Robbie Earle, but has since parlayed her dance experience into various touring musical theatre productions so she's doing fine.

Will Georgia May Foote manage to go one better than Natalie Gumede and snatch the Strictly crown?  She claims to have had a little bit of dance training as a child, which usually means she spent most of her infancy in a tutu doing the splits and she'll blow us all away with her skills (see West End star Denise Van Outen claiming that all she'd done in Chicago was sit on a chair).  It also means that the public, while appreciating her talent, won't vote for her because she didn't have a journey.  We shall see when Strictly returns in September.  In the meantime, keeeeeep dancing!

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