Coronation Street drama teacher is an ex-EastEnders star
Here’s why the director of the school play looks so familiar
Weatherfield High’s production of Bugsy Malone might merely be the backdrop for Asha Alahan’s dramatic skin lightening storyline in Coronation Street, but it has brought back a familiar face to the soap.
Drama teacher and school play director Nigel Kipling is currently putting pupils through their paces with the help of stage manager Mary Taylor, a fellow member of the local amateur dramatic society.
Nigel was briefly seen in spring 2018 when Mary begged her thespian pal to pose as a work colleague for her deceitful son Jude Appleton, in order to convince his then wife Angie he was still holding down a job at a marine life centre from which he'd actually been sacked.
Hence Nigel and Mary's brief exchange in Friday 4th October’s episode in which she references their past connection.
Nigel is played by Richard Elis, who soap fans with long memories may also recognise from EastEnders – the actor played cheeky chappy Welshman Huw Edwards from 1996 to 1999.
Slacker squatter Huw was best mates with Lenny Wallace, and the young scamp got up to all sorts of mischief during his three years on the Square including running a pirate radio station, getting on the wrong side of fusspot Ian Beale and working as a barman in the E20 club in the days when it was run by gangsters George Palmer, then Steve Owen.
Very much a fun supporting character rather than a brooding leading man, Huw eventually moved away from Walford to live in the West Country with an artist mate of Teresa di Marco’s called Carrie Swann.
Elis has also appeared in Casualty, Doctors, The Bill and Welsh dramas including Pobl Y Cwm, Hinterland and 35 Diwrnod.
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