Coronation Street’s Daniel Brocklebank shares details of soap’s first gay wedding storyline: ‘I’m honoured’
Paul and Billy may finally tie the knot, with a tragic twist as Paul's sickness worsens - article contains spoilers
By Dale Fox
Coronation Street is gearing up for its first successful on-screen gay marriage, as a storyline with a tragic twist between couple Billy Mayhew and Paul Foreman.
In an episode airing next week, as Paul’s Motor Neurone Disease (MND) worsens, he discusses his future with Billy.
He asks Billy to assist him in ending his life when his suffering becomes too much, proposing to him moments later, Digital Spy reported.
“When Paul says I’ve got something I need to ask you, Billy automatically assumes that it’s going to be a proposal,” Daniel Brocklebank, who plays Vicar Billy, told the outlet.
“Billy has been on the other side of the altar for so many”
“And then Paul basically asks him to help him kill himself when the time comes. That was not what he was expecting. But eventually Paul does ask him to marry him and he is thrilled.”
The wedding is a long time coming for the fictional Weatherfield dwellers, with rumours of matrimony swirling since the pair were embroiled in a love triangle in 2021.
“I’m thrilled,” the star added. “I mean, obviously there’s been long running gay characters in the show, prior to Billy with Todd and Sean and also Sophie. And I’m thrilled that we are going to finally have a wedding.
“Billy has been on the other side of the altar for so many it seems fitting for him to have the first one, and with him being a religious man it is significant in that way too.”
If the ceremony actually goes ahead, it will mark major progress for the show after past failed attempts at portraying same-sex weddings.
A wedding storyline in 2011 between characters Sian Powers and Sophie Webster ended in a jilting. And in 2019, planned nuptials between fictional Rana Habeeb and Kate Connor ended with one of the pair crushed to death by a collapsed roof on their big day.