Will Ian McKellen reprise his role in Corrie?
Coronation Street star Antony Cotton has hinted the Sir Ian McKellen is keen to have another guest stint in the ITV soap.
The 75-year-old Hobbit star made a brief guest appearance in Coronation Street in May 2005, playing scheming Mel Hutchwright.
PA reports Cotton said: “I think that we’ve had the greatest cameo which was from McKellen. Because he wasn’t just a cameo, he was amazing.
“Ian did say to me, and I’m going to put this out here, ‘I think it’s about time that Mel Hutchwright maybe made a reappearance’. Because it was a brilliant storyline. It was written especially for him, he was a scoundrel.
“I think Corrie doesn’t need cameos but when one comes along like Ian playing Mel Hutchwright, then it’s glorious because it’s meant to be, it’s not shoehorned in.”
Cotton has revealed how his character Sean Tully was created as a gay version of Raquel Watts.
Raquel was the much-loved ditzy barmaid played by Sarah Lancashire in the ITV soap between 1991 and 2000. Antony arrived on the cobbles in 2003 as barman and factory worker Sean, who has always been unlucky in love.
Antony explained: “When I first came into the show, a lot of the old-school writers that are no longer here – because it was 13 years ago – they’d never written a gay character.
“At that time, Raquel had just gone so they basically wrote Sean as Raquel. Her voice was his voice, so I took on the sensibilities of Raquel.”
