Coronation Street Roy Cropper’s forgotten dark history revealed as he’s banged up for murder
Corrie’s kind-hearted cafe owner Roy Cropper is embroiled in a messy murder storyline, which is more suited to the scary "psychopath" he used to be in his early days on the cobbles
Coronation Street’s Roy Cropper seems all sweetness and light, but that wasn’t always the case.
It’s looking like a dramatic week ahead on the cobbles for mild-mannered Roy, played by Corrie icon David Neilson, after he was wrongly arrested on suspicion of killing his former employee. And now he’s been handcuffed again for the supposed murder of missing teenager Lauren Bolton.
Things had been stacking against him after he cleaned Lauren’s flat following her disappearance and was later seen taking bin bags and spades to the bat roost site. He has also faced an onslaught of ‘social media sleuths’, who are adamant Roy’s behaviour has proved he is responsible for Lauren’s disappearance and death – which of course, he isn’t.
But this isn’t the first time Roy’s true character has been in question. When he first arrived on the street, he was a very different man to the one he is now. He was once a “scary” stalker who hounded another of the soap’s much loved female characters.
Back in 1995, long standing and much loved character Deirdre Barlow (Anne Kirkbride) moved into a new flat. She met Roy at the same time and he was overly helpful, to put it mildly. He was caught reading a postcard Tracy (Kate Ford) sent to Deirdre by Jamie Armstrong (Joseph Gilgun), who called him pathetic because he thought Roy was stalking Deirdre. David recalls: “Roy was a psychopath. He was stalking Deirdre and was a bit scary. It’s nice to play psychos but they don’t stay around too long.”
Roy sits alone in his cafe
In 2020 David appeared on This Morning and spoke to former hosts Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby about the character’s dark side: “I enjoyed playing him and there’s always an element of, who is he? What’s he up to? Is he dangerous? Or is he benign? I think he was such a stalker and a bit dodgy he couldn’t then become just ordinary, he always had that strangeness to him – individuality not strangeness. But, from what I see in the world, most people are like Roy, he was just ahead of his time.”
Speaking about the recent plot, David recognises that it will spark people’s memories of the Roy of old: “What I like about this storyline is the way it has gone back 29 years to 1995 when Roy first arrived. It is reminiscent of that early Roy Cropper when people were suspicious of his behaviour and thought he was creepy. And all this history will be used against him, things that have happened in the past like abducting their foster child. All that makes this storyline interesting to play and to watch it unfold.
“Roy is innocent in every respect, he is innocent of the crime, but he is also an innocent soul. He never thought for one minute it would come to this, he truly felt that if he simply answered everything honestly it would all be okay and he was naïve to assume that being innocent meant that he would be seen to be innocent.”
David explained how he managed to turn the character around with the help of his wife, Jane Neilson, who is a special needs teacher and has worked with people with autism. He credits her with shaping the character over the years: “Roy could have Asperger’s syndrome,” he said. “Making him socially inept, rather than menacing. Nobody really knew what Asperger’s was back in 1995, so it’s my wife I owe it to.
“It’s never mentioned in the story though and it shouldn’t be – Roy is a human being, and a label doesn’t help him. But I think he’s got it. It gives him reasons for his behaviour and gives me something to play. I enjoy idiosyncrasies in people and Roy is full of them.”
