Tommy Orpington (Matt Milburn)
Coronation Street's Michelle Connor seems to be making a habit of attracting familiar soap faces as her wedding planner clients.
Former Hollyoaks and Emmerdale star Matt Milburn is now heading to the Rovers Return in the role of Tommy Orpington, a local football star who hires Michelle to oversee his big day.
It wasn't so long ago that Waterloo Road's Leon Ockenden was cast as Michelle's first love Will Chatterton, who also enlisted her wedding planner services but ended up having a fling with her.
There's not much chance of a similar romantic scenario happening this time, though, as it's Michelle's husband Steve who excitedly demands all of Tommy's time.
Delighted to have a football star in their midst, Steve fawns over Tommy at the pub - but he's not the only one as Tim Metcalfe and Tyrone Dobbs are equally excited.
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Michelle Connor is embarrassed by the fuss over Tommy Orpington in Coronation Street
© ITV
Tommy's presence on the cobbles soon leads to trouble when he starts spending all of his time with Tim Metcalfe, playing a game of Subbuteo with him at the cab office and later heading to Tim's place for some home brew.
Steve is outraged by their new-found friendship and accuses Tim of trying to steal Tommy away from him. Hmm, this certainly wasn't a triangle that we were expecting!
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Steve McDonald gets jealous over Tim Metcalfe and Tommy Orpington in Coronation Street
© ITV
Later, when Tim and Steve enjoy a game of football with Tommy in the garden, Tim tries to tackle Steve but misses and ends up taking poor Tommy out instead.
As Tommy cries out in pain, could Tim and Steve's battles for his attention have caused some serious damage?
Matt, who's expected to appear in four Corrie episodes, previously played Hollyoaks regular Joe Spencer between 2003 and 2006.
He also played vet Nicky Pritchard in Emmerdale and is the real-life brother of former Hollyoaks star Greg Wood, who played gangster Trevor Royle in the Channel 4 soap.
Digital Spy
Coronation Street reveals first look at Tommy Orpington's Christmas return
https://www.digitalspy.com/soaps/cor...rn-first-look/
Coronation Street has revealed a first look at Tommy Orpington's Christmas return, as the former footballer comes back for another stint in Weatherfield.
Tommy will return to our screens on Christmas Day, when the soap airs its festive edition at 7pm, as he encounters an irritated Tracy McDonald.
Tracy will be unimpressed when she realises that she is cooking for 10 people over at the Barlows, and a joke about relationship gap years ends up causing friction between her and husband Steve McDonald.
When Tracy pops over to the flower shop to find a bottle of wine, she soon finds herself serving Tommy Orpington, who has seized the opportunity to get a last-minute gift for his mum.
This marks the first appearance of Tommy since 2021, when he retired from his career as a footballer at Weatherfield County FC. He was first introduced to the soap in 2016 and has made several guest appearances since.
Corrie has now brought back actor Matt Milburn, who has also starred in Emmerdale as Nicky Pritchard and Hollyoaks as Joe Spencer, for another stint as Tommy, with producer Iain MacLeod revealing that Tommy will be involved in a romance storyline with an established female character.
"A story evolves where this attractive, historically successful man arrives into one of our female character's lives and upsets the apple cart in fairly spectacular fashion," he teased.
"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 added: "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."
