Coronation Street

Off topic a little bit, Roseanne had two actresses who played the character Becky. The original had left to continue on her study and Sarah Chalke was bought in a year later to play the role. When the original actress returned after uni had finished both actresses played the role in one series.

It was the Mirror. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Grantham#Popularity

Curly Watts is to return to The Street. Kevin Kennedy is to reprise his role of Curly.

The news came in a tweet a moment ago from Sherrie Hewson.

Since when did that silly *** work for ITV publicity?

Chillax! Harsh much? Just tweeting her congratulations for one of her close friends! I even do the same, from time to time. And I'm neither Loose nor a Woman.

Well, I might be one of them................

Probably after reading that "one of her closest friends" was rejoining on the front page of a national newspaper

Kevin Kennedy has responded, saying "nothing is imminent or even definite."

http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2013-03-03/coronation-street-kevin-kennedy-on-curly-watts-comeback-reports

You could also directly embed/link to the tweet

Thanks for your lovely messages , yes I had lunch with Stuart ,Coro's producer but nothing is imminent or even definite

— Kevin Kennedy (@mrkevkennedy) March 3, 2013

non-neon: https://twitter.com/mrkevkennedy/status/308209111026266114

Good. I can't imagine anything worse than going down the EastEnders route of dragging up characters from the past.

It's worse than inventing previously unheard of family members.

It didn't work when they brought back Bet Gilroy (Lynch) a few years ago. Sometimes bringing back past characters can work as in Sharon Rickman with EastEnders.

Not one of the big four, but BBC Wales/S4C's long running soap "Pobol y Cwm" did this some years ago with the character of Diane. Victoria Plucknett, who still plays the character to this day, fell ill in the middle of a long running dominating storyline and was replaced by actress Eluned Jones for a few months. The switch both ways happened overnight and as the storyline whilst Eluned Jones was playing the part included Diane's high profile wedding to long running character Reg Harries, I remember the wedding photos in their home suddenly switching to re-created scenes featuring Victoria Plucknett in the same wedding outfit upon her return. It worked very well and I'd much prefer this option with Kevin Webster too than quickly re-writing full episodes with some half-thought out filler storyline. It hasn't affected Diane at all in the long term either as she's still one of the Pobol y Cwm matriarchs.

Rather than an announcement as part of the episode, the continuity announcer would remind viewers when introducing each episode - the wording they used was nicely appropriate: "Mae rhan Diane yn cael ei warchod dros dro gan Eluned Jones" - translated as "The role of Diane is being temporarily looked after/guarded by Eluned Jones"

Erm....

Bill Webster
Dennis Tanner
Peter Barlow
Leanne Tilsley
Sunita Alahan
Marcus Dent
Jed Stone

(ones listed are ones with either original actors/actresses or the most memorable actors/actresses)

then there are...

Tracy Barlow
Nick Tilsley
Tommy Duckworth
Simon Barlow
The Alahan Children

(ones listed are characters that came back with different actors/actresses)

So its nothing new and certainly not a trait started by Eastenders!