CityLife

From Corrie to the corpse lover's bride

VICKY Binns, well-known from our TV screens as Molly Compton in Coronation Street, is to star in one of the offerings in this year's 24:7 Theatre Festival.

Vicky, who is a keen supporter and ambassador for the festival, is thrilled at being offered a role in Dave & Jeff Versus The Crazed Corpse-Loving Consultant From Cardiothoracics.

The comedy has been written by Stephen Michael Lowe, who co-founded Kobal Theatre Company in 2001. It concerns nightshift morticians Dave and Jeff, who are bawled out by their boss and cursed by the pizza delivery guy. But the proverbial really hits the fan when a celebrated surgeon with a dark secret finds them hiding his runaway bride.

Not very Corrie, you might think, but Vicky sounds genuinely excited about it and the whole festival.

"There are such a lot of amazing actors and other talent out there and this was the only one I actually got an audition for, although I wanted to be in loads of them," she laughs.

"Becoming involved with 24:7 was just a coincidence. I'd met David Slack through a friend of a friend and I'd heard about 24:7 but still didn't quite get what an amazing thing it was.

"Then I went to a workshop at the Royal Exchange and they talked about it as well. It was one of those things where a name starts cropping up all over the place, and you think 'maybe I should be doing something about this'. So I got in touch with David to see if I could help in any way.

"Then it escalated into my involvement being more than I'd anticipated - and more than David had anticipated, I think! But I feel like, because I'm young, that's what I should be doing, taking chances and trying out new things.

Supportive quotes

"At first, I was just going to speak for 24:7, give a few supporting quotes and maybe come and see some of the shows. I'd always loved theatre so it seemed such a good idea to do something alongside Corrie, which is restricting in many ways because you have so much work to do when you have to produce two and a half hours of TV a week. Of course, I love it and it's an amazing job, but I still wanted to learn other things.

"I didn't want to just stand there at the 24:7 networking event, where all the writers, directors and actors come together to see who can work with who, and watch everyone else end up involved in all these wonderful plays. I want to be in it! So I queued up and put my CV forward at all of them.

"Then I actually got an audition, which was really terrifying. I was wholly expecting that not to happen, because it's such a different thing. But it was nice to be reminded of what it's like to not have a steady job as an actor and have to go through that audition process again.

"They said they'd get back to us on the Thursday and they waited until the Monday. So you spend four or five days thinking 'I should have said that' or 'I shouldn't have done that'!

"Corrie have been brilliant about it, making sure I'm not going to be needed for night shoots when the production is actually on because it's on at nine o'clock at zavvi.

"But I'd hope that Granada and Corrie would support the whole thing because it's something for new writers as well.

"I think there's a real excitement around it, especially this year. It seems to be growing into a bigger and bigger thing every year, which is great."

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