{"id":473760,"date":"2026-03-13T16:56:31","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T16:56:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/473760\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T16:56:31","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T16:56:31","slug":"who-is-coronation-streets-samantha-failsworth-as-fans-hail-return-of-diva","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/473760\/","title":{"rendered":"Who is Coronation Street’s Samantha Failsworth as fans hail ‘return’ of ‘diva’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Coronation Street<\/a> fans have been seen hailing the ‘return’ of a character they called a ‘diva’ as a funeral took place in the latest episode of the long-running show.<\/p>\n

Steve McDonald was seen attending his father Jim McDonald’s funeral during the ITV<\/a> soap on Thursday (March 12) after his death had recently occurred off-screen.<\/p>\n

Steve was given the news of his father’s death during a visit to Weatherfield earlier this month. In the episode, Steve received a phone call informing him that his dad had passed away, leaving him upset that he didn\u2019t get to say goodbye.<\/p>\n

After, he was comforted in the Rovers by his girlfriend Cassie Plummer, who he didn’t realise was planning to pop the question when het got the news, as well as his daughter Amy and ex-wife Tracy Barlow. Steve attempted to drown his sorrows and as Maggie Driscoll watched on, Amy noted that Jim had been struggling with illness for a period of time.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Jim McDonald’s funeral and wake took place(Image: ITV)<\/p>\n

The off-screen death comes after actor Charlie Lawson confirmed that his character’s death was going to occur off-screen. He originally joined Corrie as Jim back in 1989 and was last seen on the cobbles back in 2018.<\/p>\n

The funeral unfolded off-screen during the latest episode of Corrie, with Ben Driscoll on hand to offer his support, alongside Cassie, Amy, Tracy and Tim Metcalfe. And while viewers didn\u2019t see his actual funeral service, it was during the wake at the Rovers that details unfolded, with two old pals of Jim’s joining.<\/p>\n

Tracy and Amy started asking questions about those in attendance, and when Amy asked her dad who the mysterious woman with a ‘ridiculous’ coat was, Steve groaned and told her: “Samantha Failsworth<\/a>,” to which Ben said: “Oh she was younger than me.” When Amy asked if they dated, Steve added: “They were just friends but if he had his way they\u2019d have been more.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Tina Hobley playing Samantha Failsworth in Coronation Street(Image: Granada Television)<\/p>\n

Samantha was a Rovers barmaid back in the 90s. She was played by Tina Hobley between 1996, when she rode onto the cobbles on her motorbike on the run from a bad marriage, and 1998, with the character causing nothing short of chaos on the cobbles, particularly with her Weatherfield romances with Sean Skinner and Des Barnes.<\/p>\n

And the mention quickly got Corrie viewers commenting on social media. One noted: “In tonight\u2019s #corrie \u2014 Samantha Failsworth Klaxon..” Another said: “Samantha failsworth coming back to weatherfield for jim\u2019s funeral and i didn\u2019t get to see it\u2026 I could cry.” A third commented: “Got excited at the mention of my first #Corrie crush in today’s episode. Oh Sam.” @camjmes0 added: “Does this mean she attended Jim\u2019s funeral offscreen? ar scheming diva #Corrie.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Coronation Street fans have been seen hailing the ‘return’ of a character they called a ‘diva’ as a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473761,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[2525,96,347,391,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-473760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-coronation-street","tag-entertainment","tag-itv","tag-tv","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473760\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}