ECHO TV Editor Peter Grant meets the latest addition to the Street.
By Peter Grant, Liverpool Echo
FROM Wavertree to Weatherfield, Craig Charles still can't stop pinching himself.
The Liverpool poet, actor and radio and TV presenter is the latest addition to the world-famous Coronation Street ... and he is just getting over the initial shell shock.
"I used to watch it as a kid back in Liverpool and then you find yourself on the Street with characters you have been brought up on - there they are in front of you acting with you, standing next to you - it's freaky. Nothing at all prepares you for it.
"It's one of those jobs that make you think: 'Is this real?'"
Craig - who starred in Red Dwarf as the curry-loving human Lister, presents Robot Wars and appeared in the reality show The Games - has joined the Street for an initial six-month run.
I joined him on the famous set after he filmed his first scene as taxi driver and 'Jack the lad' Lloyd Bowen..
Craig shakes his head as we walk past the Rovers Return: "I had my first pint in there last week," he says with a grin, pointing at the green-painted brick work. It was a real pint of bitter shandy.
"There I was - me - actually at the bar in THE Rovers Return. I was fiddling with the real Newton and Ridley beer mats."
He is obviously relishing his new role and hoping that Lloyd Bowen, who works for Steve McDonald's firm Street Cars, becomes as popular as previous Liverpudlians who have appeared in the soap.
There's been Bill Kenwright, Jean Alexander, Peter Adamson, Kenneth Cope, Patricia Routledge, Geoffrey Hughes, Sue Jenkins and Margi Clarke, to name just a few.
