Chris Gascoyne to star in Jack and the Beanstalk after Coronation Street exit

Coronation Street star Chris Gascoyne has lined up his first role since announcing he is leaving the soap, in a pantomime production of Jack And The Beanstalk.

The 46-year-old, best recognised for playing troubled bad boy Peter Barlow on the cobbles, is to make his panto debut as villainous Fleshcreep in the six-week run at Birmingham's Hippodrome in December.

Blue singer Duncan James and former Loose Women panellist Jane McDonald will also appear in the show, reported The Sun.

Chris, who will leave Coronation Street when his contract ends in the autumn, is following in the footsteps of co-star and screen rival Marc Baylis, who is also walking out of Weatherfield later this year and has signed up to play Prince Charming in Sleeping Beauty in Bromley, Kent.

Chris, who has played Peter on and off for more than 13 years, announced his exit from Coronation Street last October.

"I'd like to do a play because I've not done one for a long time and it's a different thing altogether - you can't stop and say, 'Can we do it again?'" he told TV Times in March.

 

 

Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 


An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.