Coronation Street's Kevin Kennedy opens up about Curly and Raquel's 'bizarre' wedding

Coronation Street Curly

Kevin spoke to Lorraine about his time on the soap...

Coronation Street legend Kevin Kennedy appeared on Monday's episode of Lorraine to reflect on his time on the soap including the famous Curly and Raquel wedding.

He played Norman "Curly" Watts from 1983 - 2003, before his character left the cobbles.

The ITV soap is airing a special episode at 8:30pm, which will focus on the soap's most memorable weddings.

One of these is Curly and Raquel's wedding, which saw Kevin Kennedy - who popped up in Mrs Brown's Boys recently - and Sarah Lancashire exploring this complicated relationship.

It was one of the biggest moments in Corrie history, with 22 million people watching their wedding in 1995.

Curly and Raquel wedding in Coronation Street

Curly and Raquel married in 1995 in Coronation Street

Lorraine said, "Both of those characters were just delightful. You hoped and you prayed that it was going to work out, for poor old Curly, but sadly, sadly no!"

Kevin revealed, "There was so much interest in that particular story. It was beautifully written, and you couldn't go wrong with it because the scripts were great.

"And there was so much interest in it that Granada decided to keep it very, very secret, so no one knew about it. It was a totally separate crew, seperate director, Sarah and I were taken off somewhere... and then we carried on with our normal episodes.

"We were actually married, but we couldn't let anyone know, it was bizarre!"

Lorraine added, "You are almost like an ambassador for Corrie, and so proud of the time there and what you achieved."

Kevin replied, "Once you've been involved in Coronation Street you're an ambassador for life, and I'm very proud of all that stuff that we did."

Most of Curly's storylines focused on his failure to form a successful romantic relationship.

Even his first wedding, whilst memorable, was short lived because Raquel left him to work as a beautician in Kuala Lumpur.

Reflecting on this, Kevin added, "People still remember it. I think that's a privilege when people say 'Oh I remember you' because people link it to their own lives."

Coronation Street: Weddings airs at 8:30pm on ITV1.

Lucy Buglass
Senior Staff Writer

Lucy joined the WhatToWatch.com team in 2021, where she writes series guides for must-watch programmes, reviews and the latest TV news. Now she works for our sister site TechRadar in the same role. Originally from Northumberland, she graduated from Oxford Brookes University with a degree in Film Studies and moved to London to begin a career writing about entertainment.

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