Coronation Street star Lorna Laidlaw has reportedly quit her role as Aggie Bailey – more than a year after her final, lowkey appearance.
The actress, 61, who is best known for her role as receptionist Mrs Tembe in BBC One soap Doctors for eight years,
moved over to the long-running ITV soap in 2019 to play Aggie, matriarch of the serial’s first regular black family.
After a lengthy absence during the COVID pandemic, she returned for a storyline that saw Aggie and husband Ed (Trevor Michael Georges) face their fall from grace head on.
The couple had moved to the terraced backstreets of Weatherfield from wealthy Alderley Edge in Cheshire, and couldn’t bring themselves to tell their old neighbours where they now lived – instead opting to swap houses with Sally (Sally Dynevor) and Tim Metcalfe (Joe Duttine).
Her last appearance was on 12th June last year, exactly three years on from her first, and it was explained that Aggie had gone to stay in Birmingham to care for her unwell aunt.
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In her absence, Ed’s gambling addiction relapsed, and after selling all of the family’s Christmas presents in a botched fake robbery, he almost lost their house.
Children Michael (Ryan Russell) and Dee-Dee (Channique Sterling-Brown) urged him to tell their mum, and after returning from Birmingham earlier this year, he announced that they had separated.
Now it seems that any hopes of a reconciliation are off the table, with Lorna seemingly signing on the dotted line for a role in Channel 5 drama The Good Ship Murder.
The series has a number of soap stars amongst its talent – including Coronation Street’s Catherine Tyldesley, Shayne Ward and Claire Sweeney, as well as Hollyoaks legend Ross Adams.
‘Lorna is a hugely talented actress and it’s a great gig to land’ a source told The Sun.
‘The show films in beautiful Malta and the cast and crew are a close knit group so it’s a really great atmosphere to work in.’
It’s likely that should’ve played a huge part in an ongoing Corrie plot that has seen Dee-Dee become engaged to killer Joel Deering (Calum Lill) – but its now likely that Aggie will be stuck in Birmingham forever more.
