Coronation Street has been going since 1960, and in all that time it has never featured a black family. That is, until now.
The Bailey family are set to join the cobbles in June.
Dad Edison, mother Aggie and their grown-up sons Michael and James will move into No.3. As the storyline goes, they’ve bought Norris Cole’s house. Norris was last seen leaving Weatherfield in 2017 to visit friend Emily Bishop, who owned No. 3 before Norris.
While Coronation Street has previously featured black characters, this is the first time an entire family has been introduced.
Trevor Michael Georges will play builder Edison, and Edison will take over the builder’s yard with son Michael (CBeebies House’ presenter Ryan Russell). Lorna Laidlaw is set to star as Aggie, the matriarch of the family and a pharmacy assistant. Their other son James is a football player.
Previous characters have included Lloyd Mullaney, played by Craig Charles, and his daughter Jenna played by Krissi Bohn and Tyrone Dobb’s ex parter Kirsty Soames who he has daughter Ruby with.
There have been no full-time black characters since the departure of Mary’s daughter-in-law Angie Appleton (Victoria Ekanoye) in January.
Producer Iain MacLeod told ITV, “The north-west and Great Britain as a whole is a big melting pot of people from different backgrounds and ethnicities and the more representative we can make Corrie of Manchester and Britain the better really.
“Manchester has a lot of black residents so it did feel sort of overdue we did this and represented modern Manchester a bit more accurately.”
Well, about time!
