Sue Nicholls could be about to leave Coronation Street, says expert and former writer
Sue Nicholls could be about to leave 'Coronation Street'.
The 80-year-old actress has played hairdresser Audrey Roberts on the ITV1 soap opera since 1984 and following the news that her on-screen daughter Gail Platt (Helen Worth) is to leave after more than 50 years on the show, former scriptwriter Daran Little has predicted that she will follow suit.
Daran wrote on X: "My gut feeling is Sue [Nicholls] won't want to stay long without Helen. No insider knowledge, just a feeling."
Daran - who started off as an archivist at Granada Studios after graduating from university and wrote for 'Coronation Street' from 2000 until 2010 but has penned scripts for rival 'EastEnders' ever since - was left "fascinated" by the social media response to the news that Helen was stepping down from her long-running role, as he compared her to fellow soap icon Julie Goodyear, who left her role as Rovers landlady Bet Lynch in 1995.
He added: "All the posts about Helen Worth leaving [are] fascinating... such an outpouring of love, it's as if she's died! Got me thinking that's she's probably the first 'icon' character to leave the soap since social media started the previous one, I think, was Julie Goodyear after 25 years."
Making her announcement, she said: “This year felt like the perfect time to leave the show after celebrating 50 years in the most wonderful job on the most wonderful street in the world. I made the decision at the start of the year and spoke to the producers who were very kind and understanding.
“I have been truly blessed to have been given the most incredible scripts week in week out, and to have worked with fantastic actors, directors and a brilliant crew.
“The past 50 years have flown by and I don't think the fact that I am leaving has quite sunk in yet.”
Helen will start filming her exit story next month and the emotional scenes will be on screen at the end of the year.
Helen was first seen on the soap as Gail Potter in July 1974 and was seven years older than her character, who was meant to be 16 years old at the time.
She was married to Brian Tinsley (Christopher Quinten) from 1979 until 1987 and had Sarah (Tina O'Brien) and Nick (Ben Price) with him.
Allthough they remarried in 1988, he was stabbed to death shortly afterwards.
She then married nurse Martin Platt (Sean Wilson) in 1991 and had David (Jack P. Shepherd) with him but that marriage ended in 2001 when she discovered he had been having an affair with her colleague Rebecca Hopkins (Jill Halfpenny) whilst she was trying to come to terms with Sarah's teenage pregnancy.
In 2002, she married Richard Hillman (Brian Capron) but it all ended in disaster when he turned out to be a serial killer and drove Gail and her family into the canal.
Only Richard did not survive the ordeal and Gail later married Joe McIntyre (Reece Dinsdale) in 2010, but that was short-lived because he had tried to fake his own death as part of an insurance fraud but actually drowned.
Following a brief jail sentence in which she had wrongly been accused of his murder, Gail met Michael Rodwell (Les Dennis) when he burgled her home in 2014 and the pair ended up tying the knot in 2015 but he suffered a fatal heart attack just a year later.
