The star felt the Weatherfield plot was ‘cut short’
Actress Claire King has opened up about her time on Coronation Street, and revealed her disappointment in the way her character Erica Holroyd’s miscarriage storyline was handled.
The actress appeared in the soap on and off from 2014 to 2017. In 2015, her character became pregnant as the result of a fling with younger lover Nick Tilsley (Ben Price). Erica, who was 50 at the time, decided to go ahead with the pregnancy, believing it was her last opportunity to have a child. However, she later miscarried.
Nick then went on to have a relationship with Carla Connor (Alison King), while Erica got together with Dev Alahan (Jimmi Harkishin).
Asked about her time on Coronation Street, Claire told us: “I can hardly remember it, quite honestly. She was a bit stuck on her own because she was a bit of a pinball in a big machine with no family, no ties. She literally had one friend, Liz; they’d run a bar together in Spain when Liz did her walkabout for a few years.
"I literally was in for 12 episodes and they decided to bring her back and we had the pregnancy storyline, which was a bit of a joke!”
Adds Claire: “It could’ve been a big story. They did it with Kym Marsh afterwards which got a lot of praise, but they just left it at mine and finished it.
"I felt as though it was cut short a bit, particularly for older women, because it is a topical conversation to have. It could’ve been delved into a lot more. But anyway, I felt that they didn’t really know what to do with the character, so it was just ‘adios!’”
Claire will be back on screens next week in her more familiar guise as Emmerdale "super bitch" Kim Tate – 19 years after her last appearance in the Yorkshire soap. She will appear for one week only, in a storyline that sees Kim pushed over a balcony at the Home Farm masquerade ball.
Main picture: S Meddle/ITV/REX/Shutterstock; Corrie pic: REX/Shutterstock
