It seems that one of Coronation Street‘s fast-favourite characters won’t be returning to the cobbles anytime soon.
Introduced in an episode focused on Shona and David Platt, surgeon Vincent Harper touched the lives of several characters in Weatherfield when he was called in from Bristol for a risky operation.
The doctor performed a delicate caesarean on Shona to deliver her baby, who had a growing tumour on the side of her neck. After the surgery went smoothly, David and Shona decided to name their daughter Harper as a tribute to the doctor.
Despite having had an impact on the Platts as well as Bernie Winter-Alahan, who opened up about Billy’s death with him, the affable doctor won’t be back.
During an appearance on ITV’s This Morning, soap expert Sharon Marshall confirmed that Harper won’t be trading Bristol for Weatherfield and has no part in the soap’s upcoming murder mystery.

ITV
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“He lives in Bristol and is not coming back, sorry to disappoint everyone who really liked him,” she said.
Marshall doubled down on Harper’s role being done and dusted on her Twitter/X account, acknowledging that the character played by John Hollingworth “made quite the splash”.
“As we just said on air, sorry to break it but Dr Harper’s not a returning character in Corrie,” Marshall wrote. “Have lost count of the number of hopeful people asking.. he made quite the splash! X”
One fan replied: “I’m so confused whyyy did we find out so much about him and his kids birthday cake it really stood out to me as strange.”
In response, Marshall admitted that Harper had a “big part for not a big part”, but reiterated “it was just a lovely guest role”.

ITV
Elsewhere on Corrie, the soap will be pulling a White Lotus, as Marshall put it on This Morning.
“Someone finds a dead body but we don’t know who the victim is, and then there’s gonna be five potential victims,” she explained.
“It’s not gonna go on for a year. It’s just gonna go on for a few months and it’s just one of those little intriguing mysteries.”
Coronation Street airs on weeknights at 8.30pm on ITV1 and streams on ITVX.
Read more Coronation Street spoilers on our dedicated homepage
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