Evelyn Plummer (Maureen Lipman) and Roy Cropper (David Neilson) have become firm friends in Coronation Street. The sharp-tongued Evelyn and mild-mannered Roy would seem like opposites, but as Maureen Lipman told us last year, ‘Roy is basically the only person who gets Evelyn and she gets him.’
When Roy was arrested on suspicion of the murder of Lauren Bolton (Cait Fitton), Evelyn was one of his staunchest supporters.
She even got in trouble with the police herself at one point when troublemaker Alice McDowd – who had been pretending to be Lauren’s mother but was actually an internet sleuth – filed an assault complaint against Roy. Evelyn stepped up and tried to take the blame.
While Roy was in prison, it was Evelyn who managed to lift his spirits with a book club, even managing to get a ‘chuckle’ out of Roy as they discussed their book of choice in a phone call. It was one of the rare lighter moments for Roy during the whole ordeal.
So in upcoming episodes Evelyn is quite keen to help Roy’s other friends do what they can to lift the cafe owner’s spirits. Since his release from prison the trauma that he went through has made him even more withdrawn than usual and Yasmeen Nazir (Shelley King), Nina Lucas (Mollie Gallagher) and Shona Platt (Julia Goulding) agreed that something needed to be done.
Nina told Evelyn that Shona was sick and couldn’t do her shift in the cafe. Even then, Roy was reluctant to come down from the flat and help out. It wasn’t until Nina set the smoke alarm off that Roy emerged from the flat, put his apron on and got to work.
Sadly this backfires in coming episodes. Roy heads out to take Shona some soup as she’s still supposed to be unwell, and he’s confronted by a gang of yobs who start calling him names. It’s all too much for poor Roy who collapses to the ground. Carla Connor (Alison King) rushes over and realises that Roy is in pain.
Later, Shona emits that she was never ill in the first place and poor Roy is incredibly upset that he was forced to go back to work before he felt ready. He orders her out of the cafe – and does the same for Evelyn.
It’s not long before Nina sees Shona on the corner of the street and Shona tells her what happened.
Then they see an ambulance going past on blue lights and stop outside the cafe. When they get there they find paramedics doing CPR on Roy – who is lifeless on the floor.
Is this the end for Roy?
