Coronation Street‘s William Roache has been playing Ken Barlow since has was 28 years old, and has long held the title of longest-serving actor in a television soap. And while he might not appear as much on screen nowadays, he isn’t going away either.
The soap’s boss Iain MacLeod told the Daily Star that Roache will never be written out of the soap as long as he’s alive and willing to continue, although he admitted there had been exit stories pitched.
“William Roache has been in the show since episode 1,” he said, adding: “William has a job for as long as he wants it… absolutely.
“I mean, it would be a brave producer [who takes] the decision to axe him.
“William [is] a miraculous individual. Whatever you give him, even now, he’s on point, he’s on his dialogue… He’s the most professional member of the cast. I don’t think anyone could dispute that.”
ITV
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On the topic of people proposing dropping Ken from the show, MacLeod humorously explained that it became a way for cheeky scamps to derail meetings.
“Years ago at meetings, one of the writers would mischievously suggest bumping off Ken and things would descend into an argument,” he recalled.
“And then someone would say, ‘Forget it, let’s just go to the pub’.
“So staff used to suggest getting rid of Ken to destroy meetings so everyone could go to the pub.”
ITV
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Roache himself has stated multiple times over the years that he has no intention to leave Corrie, although he did admit to having his eye on the door due to wanting to do films and finding that Ken had gotten a bit “nerdy”.
Last year, he also spoke about how he had a feud with a co-star for a while, before becoming very close friends.
Coronation Street airs on weeknights at 8.30pm on ITV1 and streams on ITVX and YouTube.
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