It happened over lunch, two years ago, at the perfectly respectable, unshowy Spirit bar on Canal Street, gay Manchester's bristling thoroughfare. Daran Little, one of the legion scriptwriters on Britain's favourite soap, Coronation Street, took out two of his young charges, Bruno Langley and Ryan Thomas (brothers Todd and Jason Grimshaw, respectively) with the express intention of discussing what was happening to their characters.

"I got called in to see him and thought 'oh shit, what have I done?'" remembers Bruno now. It's easy to see why. These occasions can be fretful in the high-turnover, fickle field of ongoing television drama. Only a year earlier, troubled Tracy Shaw had been invited into a similar scenario, only to be instructed that Maxine Peacock, the tan-in-a-can hairdressing sensation that she had played for most of her professional life, was about to be bludgeoned to death by The Street's homicidal pantomime villain, Richard Hillman. One minute you're the toast of national red top gossip columnists, at the swanky end of every fancy showbiz party invite list, the next you're being whisked anorexically through Kwik Save on a shopping trolley, as Shaw did, deliriously waving a one-way ticket to the soap rubbish dump in your immaculately manicured fingertips.

Ryan was delighted at the prospect of Jason finding his long lost dad; a scally, a ne'er-do-well and a chancer, shacked up with some give-her-an-inch-and-she'll-make-a-skirt floozy in the backstreets of the imaginary suburb of Weatherfield. But the bigger shock was still to come.

Bruno was about to make soap history. Todd Grimshaw - his lovingly portrayed, if confused, cagoule-sporting, sensitive brainbox that had chucked in his A levels and a place at Oxford University under the expert tutilage of neatly-coiffured leftie Ken Barlow in exchange for a life of stacking canned sweetcorn in a corner-shop, not to mention some bedsit live-in doldrums with a gym-slip mum, the forever troubled Sarah-Lou Platt - was about to become Coronation Street's first bona fide, full-scale, living, breathing homo. The first one in its 42 year history. To put this in some context, there is only the Royal Family and the Football League, in terms of British national institutions, left to have an openly gay cast member. Coronation Street, and Bruno by default, opened a door.

The story didn't end with Bruno's character becoming the ground-breaking first woofter to walk the hallowed cobbles of Coronation Street. In a moment of rare soap genius, he was about to hint at his gay-ness, to enter into the world of teenage sexual uncertainty, by kissing perpetual gay favourite and former pop pin-up Adam '/ Breathe Again' Rickitt, aka Nicky Platt, aka Sarah-Lou's buff, blonde brother.

"It was the last thing I was expecting," says Bruno, reclining behind the modest desk of the press office at Granada Towers in Manchester. "I was speechless. Obviously they must have had it in mind. But I was pretty shocked. For the character as much as anything. It was such a change."

Daran Little remembers Bruno being initially enthused by the proposition. "His reaction was instantly brilliant, he was on board straight away."

Bruno himself recalls things a little differently, however. "I'll be honest," he says, level-headedly, "I had to think about it, because it was a life-changing thing for me, too. People call you 'Todd' on the street. They think you're the same as the character because they're so familiar with him."

He thought about it and made a quick conclusion over lunch. "I said 'yeah, I'm up for it.' The benefits were always going to outweigh the bad points. It's doing a great issue and getting a great storyline on the top show in the country. That's pretty awesome."

And, Attitude notes, getting to experience the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of kissing Adam Rickitt into the bargain.

"Yes, I know that Adam is liked by a lot of boys," he smiles, "And a lot of girls, too. I'm not sure whether I feel privileged, though." The smile turns magnetically into a laugh. "Obviously he's a good looking lad and that's why Todd was attracted to him. But he's not my type."

Let's get this over and done with from the kick-oil Sorry boys. Your luck's out. Bruno Langley may be shaping into a fine, young role-model of sexual confusion and pouting loveliness on the Street as Todd. He may know how to hold his price-gun at a perky, provocative angle in Dev's convenience store. But don't be fooled. Bruno's straight.

Daran Little sits for a moment and contemplates the psychology of casting straight boys to play gay: "The psychology is nothing more than the best actor gets the job," he says. "It really is as easy as that. I asked Bruno initially if he was worried about playing a gay character and he said he was cool with it. I told him that all the actors in Queer as Folk were straight and it certainly didn't do them any harm. Obviously the lead in Will & Grace is straight, too. The best actor must get the role. You wouldn't criticise a gay actor for playing a straight role and the same has got to apply the other way."

Bruno's quite lovely company. A sharp boy with plenty to say for himself, considered, thoughtful and clearly having the time of his life on the Street.

"I learn something new every day," he says, "I sometimes think it would've been good to go to London to drama school but it's so much better to learn on the job. You develop your own style. I'm sure I've learnt more here than I could have in three years at Rada."

His best friend on the show is Jenny McAlpine. who plays unlikely, red-headed, pie-munching sex temptress Fiz. "She's a laugh, but she's a really genuine person. It's really easy to get caught up m the different things away from the show. The parties and all that. But we've got an understanding between us."

Bruno comes from a big family. Five sisters and three brothers spanning the ages 15-35. He's third youngest at 20. There's no actorly tradition in the family but there's a musical vein running through it. Two of his sisters are part of the string quartet Dirty Pretty Strings, based in London, and recent background stars in a video for lezzer Fame Academy triumph Alex Parks. Youngest sister. 15 year old Edie, is currently in the studio recording some proper pop music. Bruno's helping her out on writing duties. "They like 'em young these days," he notes, sagely. He wants her to make the next Thriller. "I like music when it means something."

Mum and dad Langley are Australian, though Bruno's the only sibling not to have visited his fatherland yet ("Gutted about that one," he confesses). The last film he saw was Lost In Translation and he liked it, though concedes that not an awful lot actually happens in it. "You feel it, though. It's real." When pressed on a favourite film he cites American Beauty. The last album he bought was Katie Melua's Call Off The Search.

Amazingly, given he has one of the most convincing native Mancunian accents on the show at present, he was born in Norfolk and moved to Buxton at the age of four where he lived until attending drama school in Heaton Chapel, near Stockport, at 16. His natural spoken voice comes as something of a shock. "I used to listen to Ryan to get the accent right," he says (the boys shared a flat together when they started at the Street), "He's the real deal."

He was crap at school. "I liked English and music and art but I wasn't very academic," he says. He didn't like drama because it was too theoretical and, besides, 'the teacher was a bit of a knobhead.' Nevertheless, he's a fine actor. Daran Little, who worked as a researcher on the ill-fated Anglo/ Aussie soap Families in his early Granada days, says he reminds him of one of the burgeoning stars from that show. "He reminds me of Jude Law." The compliments flow around Granada about him. He's one of those soap boys that appears to be that little bit bigger than his medium.

Bruno says he's been acting since he could open his mouth. "As soon as I was born. Literally. I imitated stuff from the moment I could speak. We used to have these storytelling tapes and I'd learn the accents and do the voices and memorise the whole story and tell it back. Stuff like that. It was imitating people... and just showing off, really."

He did plays at primary and secondary school, but nothing major. He takes up the story: "I joined a local theatre group and remember the audition for that. They put a chair in the middle of the room and said to do an improvisation about it. I think I pretended to paint it. I can remember the urgency of it and thinking 'if this doesn't go right then I'm not going to get into drama school?' I think they let everyone in but, you know, at the time it seems so big. That was the first buzz, the feeling that you're proving something by acting."

His teacher at drama school introduced him to his agent, Melanie, and the work came in instantly. There was an inglorious but lucrative Sunny Delight commercial in which he sneaked a plastic carton of the fluorescent orange drink from a fridge. Then a part in Come. A not-very-important part.

"I was Darren, Candice's boyfriend. That was six months before I joined as Todd. I didn't really have any lines. I sat there at a party drinking and said 'Hello.' They've got a thing here where if you've been in it then you have to wait at least six months till you can come in again as someone else. I did that part and the casting director had me in mind for this part so I came in and read for Todd four or five times. After every time I'd ring up my agent and she'd say 'Sorry, no answer. You've got to come in again.'"

Eventually he was cast. Right from the start the producers knew that Todd would have issues around his sexuality, though it was never a foregone conclusion that he would be a full-blown gayer. Let alone one that kisses random boys on Canal Street, as he soon will be doing. "I've just finished writing Coronation Street's second gay kiss," says Daran Little, excitably. As well he might be. It sounds ace.

Karl Foster, played by the equally lovely Chris Finch, has been introduced to offset Todd's sexuality crisis. "He's the first openly gay character to be in the show," offers Bruno, generously. Chris himself is delighted at the prospect of playing Todd's paramour. Again, the actor's straight. Again, we'll say it: who cares? (the best actor gets the part etc). "This is just the most fantastic opportunity for me," says Chris, a more instantly animated but no less thoughtful character than Bruno. "I'd grown up with the show" - Bruno hadn't - "we had a little party at my mum's house and got all the neighbours round when I had my first scene last Christmas Eve." He doesn't care a jot about playing gay. "Why should I? You get really meaty storylines to start off with."

There is. of course, a minute gay faction that is sitting uncomfortably at the fact that Corrie's first gay character is wrestling with all sorts of problems around his homosexuality.

"We got a letter from a gay group complaining, basically, that he hadn't been spit-roasted after the kiss," says Daran Little, "A lot of people were saying to me after the kiss 'was that it?' and, of course, that was just the start of it. This is part of the dramatic story. An 18 year old lad coming out without any complications isn't good drama. The more complications you can pile on this lad's shoulders the harder it makes it, the more in turmoil he is, the more angst he has, the better the drama. And also I feel it's more realistic. It opens the door for another gay character to come in too. They are completely different. Because I created Karl for Todd, it was a bit of a gay dream, really. To create a boyfriend. And then to cast him to the exact physical specification I wanted for my Todd."

Karl and Todd will kiss for the first time on Canal Street, on Karl's birthday. Little says "I pitched the story as being on Canal Street and, obviously, that looked a bit unfeasible. Coronation Street on Canal Street? That's a bloody riot. But then I said 'please Look! This heightens everything'. If we take Todd onto Canal Street for the very first time and you see a gay environment through his eyes and you take him to a gay bar and see him looking round a bar full of men, if you see him experiencing life outside of the cobbles of Coronation Street it adds to the giddiness, excitement and nervousness. To me that's a hundred times better than sticking their kiss at a bus stop on the Street."

The producers gave him the go-ahead. It was Little who had sketched the characters in their initial stages. "It gave me a real responsibility," he says, understandably mindful of what Middle England might make of having homosexuality t into the midsts of their favourite post-tea-time pre-watershed soap. "In my mind I went back to watching the programme with my nan." — he grew up with it too - "Would she have wanted to M* Canal Street? Would she have wanted to see a kiss on Canal Street between two men? Probably not. But would she have turned off? No. I don't think she would have done that either. I'm aware that there are an awful lot of viewer* of who might find this offensive so I was trying to write it in a very Coronation Street way. It isn't Queer As Folk. But hopefully by now the is very wound up with Todd. An awful lot of that is to do with Bruno's performance. The audience loves him and they want him to be happy. For a lot of our established viewers this is not going to sit well. I worry about that. But I worried about Maxine getting battered to death over the head by Richard Hillman. There are some things that make people sit up and question things, but that's good. If they're sitting there going 'aaah' all the time they might as well be watching Last Of The Summer Wine. You have to be a mirror to the real world. I wanted the audience to address their attitudes to gay characters through someone they'd known for a couple of years and learnt to like."

Bruno Langley is even more succinct on the subject. "Manchester's a big gay capital. It's great that they have the Mardi Gras. And I guess if Manchester embraces it as a city then Come should embrace it because Corrie starts to lose its authenticity if it isn't Manchester. It has to be Manchester. Shooting in Canal Street is great. I mean, loads of people know Canal Street and they know it's this big part of the city. It should be in the show because otherwise Coronation Street stops being Manchester."

After the kiss with Adam Rickitt it all went a little crazy for Bruno. "There was a bit of fanmail before. Me and Ryan did a lot of girls magazines like Smash Hits and we got fanmail from girls saying 'my sister wants to marry you' which is all very flattering, but it's changed after the kiss."

The change was reasonably predictable. "I just got a lot more attention from gay men. Even in the supermarket, I'd get blokes coming up to me for a chat. But it was from everyone, too. It was quite intense. I get a lot of letters from young lads of my age saying thanks for doing it. They seem to really identify with Todd. Letters like that are really important to me. There's been one or two really heart-breaking ones and you have to write back and give them a bit of encouragement. To say 'look it's fine.'"

He's a good boy, Bruno. Sometimes playing the nation's favourite new youthful homo is more than an acting job. "Obviously it's good to keep work and your private life separate, but if I'm in work and something touches you it only seems right to write back."

Researching the part was easy enough for Bruno. I ask if he went down to Canal Street and, in common with everyone of his age, gay and straight in Manchester, he says, "I'd been down there before. Everyone goes down there."

He doesn't envisage any wild changes of character for Todd once he's reconciled his sexuality. "I don't think Todd's going to change his mannerisms. What he's feeling is an attraction, an instinct. It isn't to do with him changing anywhere else, it's just what he's attracted to. Because he's been covering that up and trying to be attracted to someone then I guess he will change a little when it comes to the surface. But it's not about him becoming a different person. It's always been there. I mean, I know what attraction is and in this case it's just applying it to something else. Which is acting. I don't think attraction between a man and a man is any different from attraction between a man and a woman, so I've got plenty to draw on. It's a basic need."

He also had a secret weapon in his armoury of research. "This is basically Daran Little's story." he says, "I came to the conclusion that really anyone could be gay. Daran was married and he was. You have to try it, I suppose. See if it's for you.*

Daran confirms: "When I first came to Manchester [nearly 20 years ago when he was 18] I was violently in denial about being gay - so much so that I got married and had children - so the whole Canal Street thing really passed me by. I only came out when I was 33."

"Daran's explained a lot to me about the background," continues Bruno, "We've had a lot of talks. It's something deep inside of Todd that he s trying to get over and his way of doing it was by being with Sarah and trying to have a family and blanking it out."

Somehow they've managed to keep Todd soulful throughout. "He likes to be very supportive of people. Of his mum, his brother. All the people that he's close to. He hasn't got many friends, but the ones he does have he cares about and keeps close Long term, I want Todd to stand up for what he believes in. I want him to go for what he wants. And I want him to be happy. That's what I want for him. Happiness."

They might not share their sexuality in common, but there is common ground between Bruno and Todd.

"Yeah, he's got a really big heart. I'm not that dissimilar to him in that way," says the actor, laughing, "I've got a heart too, you know."

© Attitude Magazine, 2/3/04

<< back