Curly Watts

Curly Watts
Coronation Street character
Portrayed by Kevin Kennedy
Duration 1983–2003
First appearance Episode 2324
11 July 1983
Last appearance Episode 5573
1 September 2003
Introduced by Mervyn Watson
Book appearances Coronation Street:
The Complete Saga
Spin-off
appearances		 The Cruise (1995)
A Knight's Tale (2010)
Classification Former; regular
Profile
Occupation

Supermarket manager

Binman
Home Newcastle upon Tyne

Norman Arthur "Curly" Watts is a fictional character from the British ITV soap opera Coronation Street, from 1983 to 2003, and in a few spin-off DVDs in 2010. He was portrayed throughout by Kevin Kennedy.

Most of Curly's storylines dealt with his repeated failure to form a successful romantic relationship or to pay for bags he gets on tick. His nickname resulted from him having straight, lank hair and getting into rows over money, mainly in 96. His hobby was astronomy, and he installed a telescope in the loft of his house.

Storylines

The character was originally a paperboy for Rita Fairclough (Barbara Knox), before working as a binman with Chalky Whiteley (Teddy Turner) and Eddie Yeats (Geoffrey Hughes), whilst lodging with Jack (William Tarmey) and Vera Duckworth (Elizabeth Dawn), and later Emily Bishop (Eileen Derbyshire). He later worked for Mike Baldwin (Johnny Briggs) alongside his best friend Terry Duckworth (Nigel Pivaro). Curly's first serious romance was with Shirley Armitage (Lisa Lewis), a black sewing-machinist from Baldwin's factory. Opposition from his old-fashioned parents Arthur (Kenneth Waller) and Eunice (Angela Rooks) led to tension between the couple, and Shirley left when Curly threw out the guests at his surprise party so he could revise for upcoming HND exams in Business Studies.

Having obtained his HND, Curly became an assistant manager at Bettabuys supermarket, where he became a protégé of manager Reg Holdsworth (Ken Morley). Whilst working there, he had a relationship with employee Kimberley Taylor (Suzanne Hall). Once again, opposition - this time from both sets of parents - caused problems. Despite other brief flings with girls such as Anne Malone (Eve Steele), Angie Freeman (Deborah McAndrew), a much older woman in Reg's future wife Maureen Holdsworth (Sherrie Hewson) - who tried to get him sacked when he rejected her advances - and a much younger woman in Maxine Peacock (Tracy Shaw), who slept with him believing that he was going abroad next day. Curly seemed doomed never to find domestic happiness.

After a prolonged on-off relationship, Curly married Raquel Wolstenhulme (Sarah Lancashire), who left him less than a year later to work as a beautician in Kuala Lumpur, and later moved to France with their daughter, Alice Diana. Curly did not know about the child until Raquel turned up unexpectedly on Millennium Eve to ask for a divorce. This episode was the first two hanger in the soap's history and it saw in the new millennium and the year 2000.

Curly met his second wife, policewoman Emma Taylor (Angela Lonsdale) when she came to investigate a series of crimes in the area in which Curly was innocently implicated. The couple married and had a son who was born on Boxing Day 2001. As Norris Cole (Malcolm Hebden) had helped delivered the child, they decided to name him Ben, as it was Norris's middle name. Later, Emma committed perjury in order to protect a colleague, causing friction between herself and the ultra-honest Curly. The couple left the Street during 2003 to start a new life near Newcastle upon Tyne, in the small town of Ryton. When the character made a comeback for the 2010 spin-off DVD movie Coronation Street - A Knight's Tale, Curly revealed that his marriage to Emma had ended since their departure from Weatherfield.

In August 2007 and again in April 2009, January 2017 and May 2018 it was revealed that Kevin Kennedy had expressed interest in making a comeback to Coronation Street[1][2] but in March 2013, ITV announced that there were no plans for Curly to return.[3]

Other appearances

Kevin Kennedy appeared in character as Curly on University Challenge Challenges Coronation Street, a special edition of University Challenge produced for the 1997 Comic Relief telethon.

Curly Watts made a return in a Coronation Street DVD Special in 2010 titled 'Knight's Tale', which saw the return of another Corrie character Reg Holdsworth.

References

  1. ↑ http://entertainment.aol.co.uk/curly-considering-return-to-corrie/article/20070729021709990002
  2. ↑ http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/soaps/a152661/kennedy-id-like-to-return-to-corrie.html
  3. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 6 March 2013. Retrieved 4 March 2013.

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