Coronation Street have cast actress Carol Royle as the mother of Joel Deering (Calum Lill) – and she’s no stranger to soapland.
Carol, 70, will play Anthea Deering in upcoming scenes on the ITV soap, and is best known for roles in sitcom Life Without George and as a recurring character in period drama Heartbeat.
She’s also appeared in Doctors as FIVE different characters, as well as two in much-missed The Bill.
Carol played Diane Lawrence in the revival of Crossroads between 2001 and 2002, and Emilie Groome, the mother of Caleb Knight (Richard Winsor) and Ethan Hardy (George Rainsford) in Casualty.
In upcoming Corrie scenes, Joel asks girlfriend Dee-Dee Bailey (Channique Sterling-Brown) to meet his parents, and she admits she’s slightly nervous when he warns that they can be stand-offish.
Rest assured, he also says that he’s sure they’ll love her once they get to know her!
What’s not to love about our Dee-Dee?
At the bistro, Anthea and her husband Gus make things incredibly awkward and their disapproval of her is immediately clear. Matters get worse when Dee-Dee’s dad Ed Bailey (Trevor Michael Georges) arrives and Anthea makes a patronising comment to him.
Unable to take much more, she storms out and heads back to the corner shop flat.
Joel, wanting to resolve the earlier altercation, gets down on one knee and pops the question! But what will she say?
It’s a pretty big week for both characters as they face the pressure of unmasking Lauren Bolton’s (Cait Fitton) killer. In last night’s (29th May) episode, Dee-Dee almost caved under the pressure of trying to clear Roy Cropper’s (David Neilson) name.
Even Joel couldn’t reason with her, and she asked him to give her some space.
Meanwhile, Hope Dobbs (Isabella Flanagan) showed a silver necklace to sister Ruby (Billie Naylor) that she’d found.
Fans will remember that Roy, has been having visions of Lauren wearing the necklace for weeks. This plays directly into our previously reported theory that Joel could be the one who murdered the troubled teen.