Top 25 Favourite Corrie Males - No. 12

GRAEME PROCTOR (124 VOTES)

Duration: 2008-2011
Played by: Craig Gazey
2012 character poll position (men): 4

Originally introduced as a cellmate of David Platt, he quickly became a hit with viewers and soon enough was lodging with the Platts. 

He was employed as a junior to Ashley Peacock in the butchers’ shop until Ashley’s death in 2010. He later followed a long line of Corrie favourites by becoming the local window cleaner. 

After failing to woo both Rosie Webster and Natasha Blakeman, he unexpectedly found love with Tina McIntyre, who was grieving after her father’s death. The relationship didn’t go down well with David who was Tina’s ex. But the relationship hit a snag when Tina introduced her friend Xin Chiang. Xin wanted to stay in the country but could only do so if she got married. Graeme and Xin had a sham wedding but they turned out to be in true love and both left the street, much to Tina’s heartbreak. But she quickly got over it when she caught the eye of Tommy Duckworth. And thus another love affair began…

Graeme also enjoyed annoying Norris – either by having the upper hand in an argument or becoming Emily’s lodger.

He was mainly a comedy character with moments including imitating Fred Elliott, dressing up as Liz McDonald and punching Steve McDonald.

Any Graeme fans out there? Would you like him to make a comeback?


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Top 60 Corrie Characters - No. 8

8. Graeme Proctor 2008-2011 (141 votes)

Eccentric window cleaner Graeme Proctor became an instant hit with fans when he was David Platt’s cellmate in the Young Offenders Institute. He was charged with arson although during his stint on the street he never caused any damage to property. Originally a guest character, his popularity amongst fans gained him a regular role and he lodged with the Platts and was employed at Ashley Peacock’s butcher shop, forming a close friendship with the squeaky voiced butcher. Due to his comedic potential, Graeme often shared scenes with Norris and Rita and often put Norris’ nose out of joint. When he found himself homeless, he found lodgings with Emily Bishop to Norris’ chagrin. Quite unexpectedly, Graeme found romance with feisty Tina McIntyre who was best mate David’s ex. Graeme had helped Tina through her grief after losing dad Joe and they fell for each other. But their romance hit a snag when Tina wanted to help friend Xin Chiang to stay in the country and wanted Graeme to marry her in a bid to obstruct her being transported. But the sham marriage turned into true love and Graeme and Xin decided to leave the street and a heartbroken Tina behind.

Should Graeme be at 8? Shocked to see him in the top 10? Were you a fan? Leave a comment!

Check out who's at 9.

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Craig Gazey stars in West End play

His Coronation Street character Graeme Proctor ended up in Edinburgh, but actor Craig Gazey is soon to be starring in London's West End. 

Craig will star in Jason Hall's thriller Third Floor at London's Trafalgar Studios 2. Directed by Russell Labey, performances begin October 11 with opening night following on October 13. The limited engagement concludes on November 5.

Described as a hilarious and unsettling look at urban living today, Third Floor follows the friendship between a young woman (Head) and her hasty but handsome neighbor (Gazey). Third Floor is produced by Sally Humphreys Productions and Jason Haigh-Ellery.

Tonight's episode, or how I fell back in love with Corrie

Tonight was the first episode I had seen since the night John fell off the roof of Weatherfield General, I stopped watching the show for a week, as I didn't feel like the show had anything for me (also for coverage of the Electronic Entertainment Expo over in L.A.).

Everything about tonight's Corrie contained everything I loved about the show from the second half of last year - sunny streets, sunny people, drama and the show looking nice and cinematic.

I think Graeme's exit was perfect, for such a warm character it feels only right that he left under a bright blue sky, with all his errors forgiven. Was also good to have a mention of poor 'Ash', or Ashley to me and you, and to hear the history of Graeme and his days at the Casa Del Platt.

Farewell Graeme!

Xin's Coronation Street wedding dress

If you're looking to get married and you'd like a Coronation Street sham-wedding inspired frock to wear on your big day, just like Xin's, then look no further.

With thanks to the lovely costume lady at Corrie, we can confirm that Xin's wedding dress is the Anoushka G Dorena ruffle detail wedding dress which was bought at House of Fraser.

Cost? £395.00 which would leave you £5 change from £400 so you can buy a ticket for the Weatherfield Wayfarer to do a runner when the Home Office want to speak to you.  

The dress is online here.

Craig Gazey interview

Craig Gazey, in his three years on Coronation Street, has become a firm favourite with fans. Sadly, his days on the Street are numbered and there's a good-bye interview in today's Manchester Evening News.

He's still filming and will likely be on our screens until July. He says he is leaving because he is the type of actor "ducking and diving and doing different things". He's hoping to get back to stage work, something he's done since he was a child. He's serious about his craft, using past performances to fine tune and improve.

Graeme won't be killed off so he could come back in the future. Craig says he would not be against that but has no plans to at the moment. As for his future, he suspects he'll end up living in London due to more opportunities as well as having more chances to go to the theatre as an audience member. We wish him the best of luck.

And don't forget, he's running in the London Marathon. Sponsor him if you can!

You may also enjoy our exclusive Q&A with Craig from last year.

Double wedding, double fiasco?

The Wedding of the ...er...week is nearly upon us. Next Friday will see us waiting with bated breath at the registry office along with two grooms, wondering if their brides will show up. In David's case, it just might be true because Gail has offered her daughter-in-law to be £1000 to dump Dave and get out of Weatherfield.

Xin will show up, because she badly wants to stay in the country but will the wedding go through? Will Graeme's innate honesty let him take those vows? Will Norris, who's discovered the secret, be the objector when the Registrar says "Does anyone here ...." ?

Tony Stewart has an interview with Michelle Keegan and Craig Gazey in the Mirror. Michelle says it's Tina that's getting the collywobbles and Craig says Graeme is scared witless he'll get caught and go down for the illegal scam!

Here's what's wrong with Graeme and Xin

Monday night's episodes showcased more cringingly awkward scenes with Graeme and Xin trying to get their stories straight under the sharp and calculating glare of Inspector Norris Clouseau. Again, I shuddered watching the actors lurch through the scenes and I wondered if they're supposed to be playing it so badly or if the actors just can't deal with the awfulness of the plot? Here's what I think. What's your opinion, dear readers?

Craig Gazey on ITV's This Morning

Craig Gazey, who plays Coronation Street's Graeme Proctor was on ITV's This Morning, er, this morning.

You can watch the video here if you're in the UK.  All I can say to overseas fans who can't view this video, is sorry, but here's a quick recap of the important points he covers:

Craig talks about Graeme's upcoming sham Corrie wedding to Xin on Friday 8th April. There's a clip of a future episode showing Tina coming out of Tommy Duckworth's front door first thing in the morning and Graeme's as jealous as can be.  He has a laugh about actor Chris Fountain (Tommy)'s fake tan and he calls him Chris Fountan.

Craig says that when he first joined Corrie he wrote himself a note to remind himself not to stay longer on the Street than two years. He's a versatile actor and wants new challenges, he says. He thanks the people at Corrie, says it's been amazing with wonderful people to work with. He acknowledges the public response to Graeme as a wonderful character and he rubbishes the piece in The Sun yesterday that says he doesn't want to come back - he'd love to return and we'd love to see him back too.

For the future, he wants to work in theatre again and do a stage play as he misses theatre work a lot. He wants to do something completely different to Graeme and show some depth with a drama. He's also running the London Marathon and you can sponsor him here.

Nosy Norris nixes nuptials?

Norris is already suspicious about Graeme and Xin's speedy romance, as we saw on Monday night during that preposterous dinner party.  It says here that Norris will get to the bottom of the scheme and find out the wedding is an immigration scam.

So what will happen? Will Norris stop the wedding? Will Tina, who also goes to the wedding to stop Norris telling, prevent the wedding from happening? Will Graeme and Xin themselves fess up and walk away from it all? I'm not sure I really care but having Norris more involved might make the rest of this story somewhat interesting. The wedding is set to take place on the same day as David and Kylie's wedding, April 8.

Corrie fans! Sponsor Craig Gazey to run London Marathon

Craig Gazey, who plays Coronation Street's Graeme Proctor, is running the London Marathon this year to raise funds for Leukeamia and Lymphoma Research.  This is a charity that's always been close to the blog's heart ever since we started and we have always done our best to support the charity as best we can.

And now, you can make a difference too.  Craig is asking fans to sponsor him to run the Marathon on Sunday 17th April.

He's got a Just Giving page and full details here.

Please sponsor Craig for this wonderful medical research charity.

Graeme and Xin and Tina

I've got a few problems with the current Graeme/Tina/Xin triangle.

Firstly, I agree that the wedding probably won't happen as it's currently being talked about, because Corrie won't want to be seen condoning something so illegal, especially when it involves a much-loved character like Graeme. Secondly, I think it's a shame that it's likely to be Craig Gazey's last big story. Thirdly, although I am all for a more ethnically-diverse Corrie cast, I don't like the way that Xin has gone from being a literal nobody to a somebody within a short space of time. Fourthly, when did Tina become such a harridan?

I loved Tina and thought she was a breath of fresh air when she first came around. I think the actress is amazing and I loved Tina's scenes with Joe and her dealing with Joe's death. But a few months ago she started wearing her hair in a high ponytail and it seems like a personality change came with that, along with her new job in the Rovers. I don't like Tina anymore and I wish she was leaving instead of Graeme.

I thought the break up scene last night between Graeme and Tina in the pub was laughable. Xin, for instance, didn't join in, which I found unrealistic, and she was smiling the entire time, which I didn't think was helpful. Graeme was on the verge of laughter too, although I couldn't work out if that was Craig corpsing or not.

I think that the rumours about Graeme and Tina breaking up for good are probably true, especially given Graeme's jibe about her dad, which may just be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

Speculation theories about Graeme and Xin

I completely agree with Flaming Nora about the ruination of Graeme Proctor. This storyline where Graeme is about to marry Xin to keep her in the country is just nasty but I'm going out on the speculation limb here. I don't think the wedding will happen.

Why? Because, first of all, Corrie can't be seen to encourage illegal behaviour. If the wedding did happen, they would be found out, Graeme would be off to jail and Xin would be on a fast boat to China. Second of all, I think Graeme is too honest to go through with it. And thirdly, I predict that Xin will get a legitimate job at the last minute, eliminating the reason for Graeme to marry her.

We know that Graeme and Tina are going to pretend to break up but will also break up for real. I expect that they will and Graeme will likely just move away or maybe go with Xin, having developed feelings for her.

What do you think? Good theory or rubbish?

Graeme Proctor – from hero to zero?

There's many facets to Graeme Proctor on  Coronation Street. Crazy fire starter, garden doctor, nutter in the hats with his home-spun philosophy and friend to David Platt.

And now, he’s – well, what?

Getting him together with Tina might have looked good on paper but he’s had a sense of humour by-pass since he got loved up. He’s not mad, bad and fun to watch any more. He’s just a bit sad. And now they’re marrying him off to a Chinese girl we’re supposed to care about - and don’t, what’s to become of our favourite Corrie bloke?

It seems it’s not just me who’s not enjoying this Graeme and Xin storyline. After asking Corrie fans on twitter it looks like there’s a lot of unhappy fans over this Xin storyline. If this is the storyline that takes Graeme away from us, as we know actor Craig Gazey is leaving Corrie this year, then what a wasteful end to a great character it’ll be.

Lamenting the loss of Corrie’s comedic men

As I’m sure everyone who reads this blog knows by now, both Eddie Windass and Graeme Proctor will be bidding farewell to the cobbles within the next few months. I was gutted when I heard about these two departures as it means that out of my top 3 current male characters only Peter will remain. Fortunately my top 3 females of Sian, Sophie and Tina will all remain, although Sian has now decided a couple of weeks in Spain is a better option that living at the Websters - the girl clearly has sense!

I was particularly surprised when I heard that the decision on Eddie’s departure was made by the producers not Steve Huison himself. This surprised me as Eddie seems to be a hugely popular character and the adoption storyline seems to be in full swing with Faye (played by Sophie Webster’s real-life cousin) making occasional appearances.

To me this double departure presents a problem for Corrie- where does the comedy come from? Everyone knew it was impossible to adequately replace the incomparable Blanche following the sad death of Maggie Jones, but Corrie has always had brilliant comedy characters who make you laugh just by being them.

To me Eddie’s finest moment came when he was effectively hired by Sally to put off a couple viewing No. 4. The genius of it was that he was simply being Eddie and he had no idea what was actually going on! That said the look on Anna’s face when Sally gave her a can of beer was priceless. He is one of those characters you really shouldn’t like because he is a lazy layabout. However, he also has a heart of gold and loves his family, in his own occasionally odd way.

As for Graeme, he may not be a heart throb but, like Eddie, he has a heart of gold which managed to land him Tina. Let’s be honest his light heartedness was probably a breath of fresh air for her after demon David and nice but dim Jason!

To me the only character seemingly capable of filling the comedy void is Norris. I’m pleased the Kabin will soon be reopening as I’ve missed the brilliant Rita-Norris double act since she narrowly escaped death by bon bons in the tram crash. Even though it’s highly likely there will be more comedy to come, Graeme and Eddie will both be missed.

Picture credits: Holy Soap (Eddie) & Contact Music (Graeme)

Two sham weddings on Corrie

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We've already heard that Kylie Turner and David Platt are getting married. There's a story in the News of the World (no link because it's a paid subscription) this weekend that says not only are they getting married but Graeme will be too, but not to Tina!

Seems that Tina's old friend, Xin, needs to marry someone to be able to stay in the country. Tina talks Graeme into the honours, staging a breakup between them and allowing Xin to move into their flat.

Kylie and David's marraige has a lot more to do with Kylie wanting to get her hands on Audrey's salon and they are persuaded to let Graeme and Xin share their wedding day.

All this will lead to Graeme's departure as the lies and pressure of keeping the secrets will push them apart for real.

Craig Gazey is leaving Coronation Street

Breaking news just in from the official Coronation Street website is that Craig Gazey, who plays Graeme Proctor, is leaving Corrie this summer.

Craig said the decision to leave the Street wasn't easy. He said: "When I first joined the cast I had no idea just how much I would enjoy being part of such an amazing team. But I became an actor for the diversity of work and the opportunity to play different roles, I also really miss working in theatre. I feel this is the right time for me to leave after two and a half fantastic years playing a unique and brilliantly written character. I don’t know what the future holds but I hope I will be given the opportunity to show my versatility as an actor and work on different projects."

Corrie producer Phil Collinson said: "Craig very quickly created a brilliant and memorable character and we are very sad to see him go.  But we wish him well and all hope this isn’t the last we see of Graeme."

Read our exclusive interview with Craig Gazey

New Chinese character for Coronation Street

The Sun reports today that Coronation Street is to get its first Chinese resident. Nineteen year old college graduate Xin is set to turn up as a friend of Tina McIntyre and move in with her and boyfriend Graeme Proctor.

Working at the local Royal Panda restaurant and takeaway she will ingratiate herself with the locals by remembering them, from their regular orders. She tells Roy Cropper: "I know you... you're sweet and sour chicken, fried rice and prawn crackers." But we are promised that she will bring some dark secrets.

A source said: "Manchester has a big Chinatown and it's a crime that Corrie bosses have ignored it for so long. They hope Xin becomes a big character and that a whole family can be introduced."

The Sun claims that the only other Chinese character on the Street was Mr Wong from the chip shop - but of course they are wrong.

The first Chinese character was Jasmine Choong who turned up in 1969 as Billy Walker's girlfriend. His mother Annie took to her at first but when she found out that Billy was planning to propose, she feigned and breakdown and took to her bed. She told Billy that she was dying begged him to find a more suitable wife.

Her lies were exposed by paying guest, Emily Nugent who told Jasmine that Annie was a fraud and when Billy did ask her to marry him, she turned him down. Before leaving Jasmine told Annie that she had nothing to fear: that there was no way her family would allow her to marry into a bigot's family.

Billy was furious and left, vowing never to return (which of course he did many times over the coming years) and Annie blamed Emily for her son's reaction, throwing her out of the pub to go and live with Elsie Tanner. Annie and Emily eventually made their peace and Emily returned to the pub, much to the relief of Elsie who was growing tired of Emily's moralising about her relationship with bookie, Dave Smith.

Tina and Graeme and why I love them

So it seems like a couple of my fellow-bloggers don't like Tina and Graeme's fledgling relationship. I love it. I love it SO MUCH, and here's why.

I love Tina. I've loved Tina ever since she arrived with her massive gold hoop earrings, looking far too glamorous for dreary old Weatherfield. I loved that t-shirt with the braces printed on it (they actually mentioned that the other day and I squeed!). I loved how she was with David and how, in the early days, Gail and Tina ganged up against him. I loved how real and emotional she was after her dad's death. I didn't really love her with David, but I can see how it was necessary, and I wish drippy Jason would feck off to London so that maybe we could have sexy Todd back instead? Tina's relationship with Jason was just a nothing to me. Do not care.

I love Graeme. I love his hoodies and his hats and his cheeky grin. I love that he's a bit weird looking. I love that he exists on a planet that is far away from Planet Earth. I love the little asides he has. I love that he has no family and a shady past but is now trying to make a decent living even though he has that not-so-hidden pyromaniac side. I would love for Graeme's family to arrive, all chaotic and rambling, a bit like the Mortons maybe? I love how Graeme talks to EVERYONE from Rita to Rosie. I would like a Graeme of my own, really. Corrie should rent him out.

This relationship doesn't work on paper. She's high maintenance and a glamorous teenager, he's laidback and a little bit off the rails. She should be with someone like Jason - pretty but dumb. Graeme is neither. But, that's WHY this works. It reminds me so much of Racquel and Curly - two other slightly odd individuals that didn't work on paper. And yet some of my earliest and best Corrie memories involve those two, the dizzy blonde barmaid and the weird supermarket assistant manager. They worked. Tina and Graeme work.

If I was writing Corrie, I would keep them together. I would have Graeme proposing somewhere really stupid, and then I'd have a gorgeous wedding where Graeme almost didn't make it for some reason but where everything turned out alright in the end. I'd love for them to settle down and fail at being parents, but together. They could have all the makings of a great Corrie couple and I for one can't wait to see!

Michelle Keegan and Craig Gazey glam up for charity night

Michelle Keegan, Coronation Street's Tina McIntyre, and Craig Gazey, who plays Graeme Proctor, were all dolled up last night to preside over a charity event to reaise funds for ovarian cancer. Michelle recently revealed she has been personally affected by ovarian cancer after her grandmother Beth Turner was diagnosed with the disease last year.