Coronation Street parrot steals co-stars' lines

John Thomson has revealed his new feathered co-star on Coronation Street likes to steal everyone else's lines. The former Cold Feet actor laughed: "I thought we'd have to teach it its lines but it directly mimics all the actors and the assistant director. "He has actually mimicked to perfection, the First Assistant Director when he says 'from the top' and the parrot says it exactly on cue." John added: "I wouldn't be surprised if next week I arrived at work and the parrot had been given a job directing the show." John the bird, owned by John's character Jesse Chadwick, will be the latest addition to the Grimshaw family when he moves in with Eileen. "He just picks up what the actors say," owner Sarah Purdy of Animal Enterprises told ITV.com. "They were rehearsing their scripts and he picked it up and said what the actors were supposed to say. The cast and crew have been in hysterics at him." The blue-and-yellow bird - who is known as Charlie in the real world - makes his Weatherfield debut from the end of August. Click here to watch whatsontv.co.uk's new weekly soaps video preview, the Soap Scoop

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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.