Matt Milburn is to reprise his role as Tommy Orpington on Coronation Street as a regular cast member, it has been confirmed.
The character first appeared in 2016 as the star striker for Weatherfield County, making occasional appearances thereafter until 2021, when Tommy retired as a player.
Now executive producer Ian MacLeod has revealed that Tommy will be back on the cobbles this Christmas and will quickly find himself romantically involved with one of the women of Weatherfield.
"Well, you'll see him on Christmas Day. He, since leaving football, has made some bad business investments, not the least of which was opening a Tommy Orpington themed gourmet burger restaurant, which has been established on screen," MacLeod told press in quotes reported by The Sun.
"Anyway, they've all gone belly up, his wife has left him and he's now had to return to the trade he had when he was a non-league footballer, which is painter and decorator.
"And you think given all that he'd be quite miserable, but he's not at all, he's very accepting of his lot, [he] actually finds the act of painting and decorating quite zen because no-one's telling him what to do, he hasn't got the gaffer screaming at him to do shuttle runs. He can just, you know, whip out his paint kettle and his roller and stick his ear buds in and he finds a quiet meditative, so he's in a good place when we find him.
"But as I noted before, significantly, he is now single, and there might be one of our female characters that needs some decorating done - not a euphemism. So, yes, there's basically a story that evolves where this attractive, successful historically, man arrives into one of our female character's lives and upsets the apple cart in fairly spectacular fashion, shall we say.
"You'll know quite quickly who I'm talking about, probably, when you see the episode, but I'd rather not say too much now, just so that you can enjoy that surprise for yourselves when we get to Christmas."
He continued: "Matt Milburn, who plays Tommy, has been in and out of the show. Tommy has often been slightly 'over there' as an untouchable figure on a pedestal for our characters to hero worship.
"This will be the first time we've done anything more significant with him and Matt is absolutely over the moon to be doing something a bit more. He's thrilled with the storyline and thinks it's a lot of fun.
"The cast involved are really up for it as well. It's very funny. It's potentially quite sad in certain places. It triggers something really big for us over the next 12 months, a big new direction for some characters – so yeah, Tommy Orpington will finally be coming off the subs' bench."
Coronation Street continues Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 8pm on ITV1 and ITVX.
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