At last Coronation Street, the gayest soap on our screens, actually features a gay character. Hurrrah!

You may have read in the tabloids (though only the nice homo-friendly ones, I hope) that there's going to be a gayer in Coronation Street, that it's going to be that sweet Todd Grimshaw, and that he's going to pucker up for Nicky Tilsley. (Not in THAT way, you dirty boys). And whatdoyouknow, it has happened. Or, at least, it's been filmed; it won't be screened until October. It is a balmy day at, suitably enough, the fag-end of August, and in the Street's Manchester studios, actor Bruno Langley and Attitude cover boy Adam Rickitt have locked lips to collaborate on Coronation Streets first ever man-on-man smacker. It wouldn't be spoiling things too much to tell you that, over a couple of bottles of Merrydown (or whatever it is young 'uns drink in the north), Todd makes a pass at Nick, his girlfriend's brother, and....

Well, that would be telling. And I can if you like. You want me to? Why, you eager little hussies! Tell you what, I'll save it for now, but be warned: there are some spoilers contained in the following feature. I don't want you writing in to moan about me ruining the surprise when you learn - in paragraph 18 - that all this time, Big Ginger Tommy has been slipping it up Tyrone over the bonnet of a Nissan Micra whenever Kevin nips to Roy's Rolls ("Who's the daddy?" "You are!").

Not really, of course. Todd will be the Street's first gay character in 43 years. Sure, the Street has always had a touch of camp about it. From the sharp-tongued hairnetted Ena Sharpies and the diva-of-the-doldrums, Elsie Tanner, to Linda Sykes and Evil Tracy Preston, there has always been a certain poovy sensibility to Corrie. Put it down to the manifold matriarchs and the flurry of fallen women. But it has never had a genuine, regular, actual gay bloke, a role model of a man to whom young boys can look to and think 'He's like me. And he doesn't pluck his eyebrows' Norris doesn't count, you understand. There's been a transsexual in a red anorak, a serial killer-cum-financial adviser, but not a well-adjusted 'omosexual.

"We used to say that Coronation Street was camp enough," explains Daran Little, the scriptwriter who devised the Todd storyline and a self-confessed "walking Corrie anorak," albeit one with a feather trim. Before becoming a writer on the show, he was its archivist which meant he made maintained Corrie's continuity. "There's a way of thinking of Corrie as existing in an alternate universe in which 'issues' don't fit comfortably. For a long time, homosexuality was considered an 'issue.' We've had ample opportunity to bring in a gay man or woman into the Street over the years, but to what end? Why would we be doing it?"

Little's fear as a viewer was "that if we ever had a gay character, it would someone mincing around like Bet Lynch, or else a 50-year-old man in a mac and comfortable shoes. The idea that it's a young, very good-looking guy who seems quite sussed with his life and has had a relationship with a girl makes it more powerful."

Indeed it does. Soap are notorious for introducing characters whose defining characteristic is their sexuality, and when that story - or at least, what passes for a story — runs its course and they become accepted into the fabric of the soap, they inevitably become dull as dull things with no excitement in their lives at all. They may have high visibility for a while (while they're being rejected by the community or suffering homophobic abuse or fretting about an HIV test) but it's snuffed out rather rapidly. Todd, says Little, is quite different.

"The thing about Todd is that he's been on-screen for two-and-a-half years. You know his mum, you know his brother, you know his home situation. He's that nice little lad who walked out of his exam and looks after Sarah and Bethany. He's not a threat. If suddenly he was to come out of Number 11 in fishnets and a pink boa, you'd have a problem with that. But the slow build-up of this kid realising that life isn't as simple as he'd hoped was going to be, and that these feelings he'd had for a while weren't going to go away, is a much better story."

It's certainly more realistic than many other portrayals and thus, more relevant to the audience. It will, you would hope, do more to promote the understanding of gayness — how you realise, what you do, how you feel about it — than the 'Queers Next Door' approach so often favoured by drama that plonks a fully-formed gay bloke (or two) into the vacant house/flat in the Square/Close/Street.

Little has been working on the Todd storyline for years and says he planned it from when he created the whole Grimshaw clan. "We'd already brought Eileen in, which I was delighted about because I went to college with [actress] Sue Cleaver, so we thought we'd bring in a family for her and put them in an empty house. So I created the sons, Todd and Jason and wrote their biographies. Right from the beginning, I wanted the elder son to find his estranged father, which Jason has done, and I wanted the other one to become confused about his sexuality."

According to Little, certain writers "take possession of characters. You have an overview of them and an understanding of them. When Kieron Roberts took over as producer two years ago, he suggested I have lunch with Bruno and Ryan [who plays Jason] and put my ideas to them. So I took them out to Canal Street and explained what I was planning to do with their characters. I really felt like I had to get them onboard, especially Bruno, so when they were excited about it, I was delighted. You have to be very secure about your own sexuality as a straight actor to play a gay character, and Bruno is. He went to drama school on Canal Street, actually, so is totally cool with the whole thing."

With Langley onside, the hard work really started. It took a year-and-a-half to get it through to scripts as the story started with Todd and Sarah getting together. The pair couldn't have sex legally until Sarah was 16, but she'd only just turned 15 when Little was creating the story, so that meant delaying her and Todd having sex then moving in together, and that meant delaying Todd eventually questioning his sexuality. "Then, we had to decide how he was going to question his sexuality," Little explains.

Enter Adam Rickitt. (That wasn't an invitation, by the way). "I wanted him to become attracted to Nick," Little says. That meant getting Rickitt, who was then hoofing it in London's glittering West End, back up to the grimy cobbled backstreets of Manchester. "I went down to London, took him out to lunch and asked him to come back. He asked what the storylines were, and I said there was lots but there was one in particular. I told him what it was, he was comfortable with it, so he agreed to come back..."

Which brings us, rather neatly even if I do say so myself, to the kiss. Or perhaps more accurately, The Kiss. Little is very excited. "I remember sitting at story conference and saying 'So I am writing the first man-on-man kiss on Coronation Street?' That was a very giddy moment. Coronation Street was created by Tony Warren, who is gay, and he wrote the first few episodes and then he left. 40 years later, I started writing for the show. Between us. there were no openly gay writers. I never wanted to be perceived as the gay writer who would inexorably bring in a gay character but this has always been the plan with Todd. It's what the other writers were waiting on."

Fear not, however. Coronation Street isn't suddenly going to start running with amyl nitrate. Todd won't be fisting any new boyfriend he might gat in *» Rovers by way of protest at the lack of homosexuality in the snug. Little doesn’t want to offend anyone.

"I don't think that's the nature of Coronation Street. Something like Queer as Folk is out there — people know the content and watch it or don't watch it - but Coronation Street is different. I grew up on it and I watched it with my nan and I hope people can watch these episodes I've written with their nans and granddads and not be embarrassed. There might be a 'tut' or two but hopefully they'll understand where it's coming from. They might think Todd's going through a phase or whatever, but hopefully, there's enough investment in the character so you feel something."

Little is adamant that the Todd storyline will be dealt with in traditional Come style. "Coronation Street is at its best when it's doing domestic stories rather than 'issues' Take Sarah's pregnancy. Yes, she was pregnant at 13, but we didn't go for 'gym-slip mum' sensational stuff. We did 'What happens when your teenager daughter is pregnant? How does that affect your family life?' We brought that story into the home and Todd's story will be very much like that."

We have, of course, had the gay kissing in soaps before. Usually, it's between two girls and it's a sensational, momentary thing to boost ratings (yes, Hollyoaks, I mean you). From reading the red tops, you could be forgiven for thinking the same thing about this. Isn't it just a headline-grabbing piece of nonsense?

"I don't want to give too much away but everyone's saying 'Ooh, Todd and Nick are gay' and that's not it at all. It's all about Todd, really. It's from his point of view. Basically, the kiss is the starting point of what's going to be a very long story with lots of twists and turns. We'll have Nick warning Todd he's keeping an eye on him and, at this moment in time, Todd denies his sexuality and stays with Sarah. But anyone who knows soap opera knows something's going to happen. Somewhere down the line, he is going to come out — big time."

And will he be getting a boyfriend?

"In my head, he already has," says Little, enigmatically. "I am determined we will remain as true as possible to the character."

Little says his first intention is to tell a great story. Judging from what he says of Todd's travails over the next wee while, he's certainly done that. I could tell you all that he told me but then I'd have to kill you. Besides, Little has another ambition in mind...

"If one teenage boy sees this and thinks Tm not on my own' and takes something from it, I'll be really pleased. I feel that if I had seen something like this when I was 18, my life would have taken a different path. I believe soaps can change people's attitudes. I'll be over the moon if this story manages to do that."

The soap opera as an engine of social change. Eee, they're queer oop north. (Bet you thought I'd resisted that old chestnut. But no).

© Attitude Magazine, 5/8/03

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