sue cleaver

And Catherine Tyldesley on being “Mr Bean with boobs!”

As fans of Coronation Street will probably know, four of the show’s stars, Sue Cleaver, Ryan Thomas, Brooke Vincent and Ben Price, recently jetted off to Africa to film the moving documentary, Corrie Goes To Kenya.

We’ll see the first part of the special film on Friday at 9pm on ITV1, and ahead of it, the actors have all revealed what a huge impact filming in the poverty stricken slum areas of Kenya had on them.

Sue, who plays Eileen Grimshaw, said that she’d decided to take part in the film hoping that she can help to raise awareness of the plight of some of the people she met.

She said, “To be able to make just a tiny, weeny bit of difference, I was like, ‘yes, absolutely, I’m on board’.”

And Brooke, who plays Sophie Webster, added, “I’m an emotional person and I know I’m going to want to take all of these people home with me, that’s what I’m like.”

The Corrie stars visited the biggest slum in Mombasa, Kenya’s second city, where an average of seven people live in each home, and where a poor sewerage system and lack of running water mean that cholera and dysentery are huge issues in the community… Continue reading »

And Emmerdale’s Lucy Pargeter on changing times among the cast

We’ll begin today’s soapy news over in Coronation Street, where actress Sue Cleaver has been hospitalized after falling ill on her recent return from Africa where she and co-star Brooke Vincent, Ryan Thomas and Ben Price were filming documentary, Corrie Goes To Kenya.

For the one-off film, Sue and her co-stars visited orphanages and areas of the country which have been decimated by HIV and AIDS, but when Sue fell ill, it was at first feared that she may have contracted the potentially fatal malaria…

However, after emergency treatment and tests, malaria was ruled out, but it’s still unclear what’s causing Sue to feel ill. Currently she is at home resting but will undergo further tests to discover what’s wrong with her.

A show insider told the Mirror, “No-one really knows what’s wrong with Sue, but she’s been feeling very ill.

”It started pretty much as soon as she got back from Kenya. Obviously serious alarm bells start ringing when you come back from Africa feeling unwell because you hear so many horror stories about people contracting diseases out there… Continue reading »