Double feature

As they pack their bags and set off on a Romanian holiday, Steve Pratt meets the actors behind the Coronation Street duo.

RECOGNITION happens when you least expect it. David Neilson was visiting his son on his gap year in a remote part of Nepal and having dinner in a restaurant when all the waiters stopped and stared.

“I thought I’d done something wrong, that I was asking too many questions. They all started moving towards me. Then they said, ‘you’re a movie star’,” recalls the actor who’s been Roy Cropper in Coronation Street for the past 14 years.

“It turned out the owner’s daughter had been to England to do a language course, had been very homesick and watched television because she was terrified of going out. One of the things she watched was Coronation Street. Then I’d walked into this place and it must have been extraordinary.

“It’s amazing what this show can do. You not only entertain people who watch it, but some very lonely person in a foreign country has got some comfort from this world.”

He’s even been asked for his autograph at a funeral. Co-star Julie Hesmondhalgh, who plays his other half, Hayley, is luckier. She wears a wig on screen and looks a lot different away from the Coronation Street set.

“I’m a bit of a second glancer, normally they don’t notice me,” she says. “I was once on Blackpool prom and just happened to meet Ian Reddington, who was Vernon. While we were chatting, a bloke came up and passed me a camera and said, ‘would you mind taking a picture of me and Vernon?’. He didn’t recognise me. It’s only when I open my mouth that I give myself away.”

The Croppers have been one of the Street’s most endearing, if quirky, double acts. He’s fastidious and straight-laced, she was Harold before her sex change. As odd couples go, they don’t get much odder.

They’ve also been chosen to star in a spin-off DVD, Romanian Holiday, the plot of which is rather given away by the title. Roy and Hayley are the fish out of water as they swap the cobbles of Weatherfield for rural Romania in a gentle, old-fashioned comedy.

Both had a great time making the film, which also features Katherine Kelly, alias Becky Mc- Donald. Hesmondhalgh calls it the “single-best working experience in my life”.

“I was quite stressed before I went because I’ve never been away from my family for that amount of time. Actually, once I was there, I thought, ‘I’m here now’ and enjoyed it. It was one of those times in your life when all the elements fall into place – the people, the place and the work you’re doing.”

She was nervous not having the comfort of the usual Street team around her – and she must have been mindful of previous attempts to take soap characters out of their natural environment that have proved embarrassing.

“Because Roy and Hayley are misfits, it really works. They’re as odd wandering around in Romania in their anoraks as they are in Weatherfield,”

she says.

AT the end of 12-hour days working in boiling heat, the cast and crew would go out for a meal and a drink.

“When you’re working in this country, everyone has their own lives and families and disperse at the end of the day. So it was just nice to go out with the crew every night. Also, we were working towards something with a beginning, a middle and an end, which is something we don’t have on the Street – it’s just a big machine that never stops.”

She was only signed for a short appearance in the Street but has been there more than a decade.

“She was meant to be a short-term story for Roy – he finds someone to live with and, unfortunately, she’s a pre-op transsexual. In the way of these things, true love conquers all.

There’s nothing new that would surprise me now,” says Hesmondhalgh.

“Again, it’s all the elements coming together.

With Roy’s place in the public’s affections, they were ready to see him fall in love with anybody.

The chemistry between me and David was there from the start. From the first day, we got along and sparked off each other. It’s just comfortable and natural.”

She still feels proud of the storyline in which Roy and Hayley got together. “It was such a sensation.

Ten years ago it was a really big deal for Corrie,” she says.

“After the initial discomfort of the community of transgender people, they embraced it, and then little old ladies in Asda embraced it and said, ‘get married’. Maybe it helped change people’s perceptions a little bit and made them a bit kinder about the issue.”

She still has, and she knows Neilson does too, “what we call Coronation Street moments”, explaining “We’ll be doing a scene in the Rovers and just say, ‘I’m in Coronation Street – how did that happen?’.

“It’s a great job. I don’t want to sound all gushy and cliched, but I really do love it. There’s something really special about it in all its chaos and bonkerness. It’s a pretty special place to work.”

Neilson is equally enthusiastic about playing Roy, with his oversize anorak and shopping bag.

“He tries hard to do the right thing, but has to think hard about everything. He doesn’t find life easy,” he explains.

Last year, he escaped the Street temporarily to appear on stage in Waiting For Godot in Manchester.

“I was doing the show during the day and the play at night, which reminded me how hard actors work,” he says.

“It’s a great buzz being on stage and seeing if you can be somebody else, convince yourself you can be somebody else. There are other plays I want to do, but next year is the Street’s 50th anniversary, so I won’t be able to do anything.

But it’s good, it charges the batteries.”

He’s content being in one of soap’s most popular double acts. “I kind of believe they exist somewhere,” he says. “There are lots of old chaps with shopping bags with obsessive behaviour.

That’s why people identify with them, because they struggle with life and most people struggle with getting by.”

■ Coronation Street: Romanian Holiday is released on DVD to buy, today, £19.99