Tell me about Coronation Street
When I went up for Coronation Street I
had to go up to Granada in Manchester
and I remember I had a really, really bad
toothache. I had to get some antibiotics
that morning and I thought ‘oh I’ve got
to go all the way to Manchester what a
waste of time I’m not northern why do
they want to see me, why bother? It’s not
my thing… EastEnders may be but not
Coronation Street.’
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wine - about a week and half later and I
had forgotten all about it. The phone goes
and I think it’s probably my agent asking
me to go up for a bloody commercial or
something so I didn’t answer it and then I
saw it go again. So I pick up and she says
‘Brian you know that Coronation Street
audition…they are offering you a six
month contract.’
are going to move you centre stage don’t
you?’ And I said ‘what do you mean?’ So
you can now have a special episode on
your own that is when Duggie the Rovers
landlord who was doing the works at my
flat fell to his demise through one of his
own shoddily built bannisters and I decide
not to dial 999 but I empty his
safe instead.
So I went all the way up there and I went
in and it was one of those situations
when I heard the person before me being
interviewed, laughing and joking and as
he went out the door and I’m thinking ‘oh
crikey’ so I go in and there’s seven lines
to read - I’m praying they don’t ask me to
do them in a northern accent, so I read
and they say ‘oh we quite like that can
you do it northern?’ And I said, muttering,
‘my northern accent’s not great’ but I did
it and that was that and I forgot all about
it, came home and thought ‘thank God
that’s over’.
It seemed a very cheesy character and
I didn’t think it was going work or that
it was going to last long and then the
producer who had actually chosen me got
sacked and a new production team came
in and they knew that Corrie was going
down the tubes, I mean EastEnders was
winning everything and they were only
getting about six or seven million viewers.
But I think they spotted something in the
character and they started to do bigger
storylines and started to reorganise
everything, bring back writers that had
left who were disenchanted, bringing in
new writers, and they slowly moved my
character centre stage.
Then one Friday evening, I was sitting
down by my beach hut with a glass of
I remember having a talk to one of the
script editors and she said ‘you know we
That was when I first knew it was getting
serious and it really started to take
off. The make-up girls used to get the
scripts first - we never used to know
whatever was happening from week to
week you were just buried in it. So if they
say ‘blimey have you seen what you’re
doing next’ and then they’d tell me and
sometimes it was just ‘oh my God’ you
know. That was a very, very exciting
storyline to be in, and also you felt that
as the viewing figures went up, the whole
thing was lifting and you could really feel
the mood lifting in Granada and it was just
fantastic. It was so surprising because I
did not think I belonged in the show. Early
on I created a situation where I thought
everyone knows he thinks he’s going to
be a conman so I tried to be very, very