Alan Halsall on Tyrone's abuse storyline

(This post was originally posted by Flaming Nora on the Coronation Street Blog May 2012, reposted to this blog with permission.)

Alan Halsall, who plays Coronation Street's Tyrone Dobbs, gives a good long interview today with The Mirror about the Tyrone and Kirsty abuse storyline.

After Kirsty lamped him with a ladle a couple of weeks ago, poor Tyrone's going to be assualted again.  Corrie have taken advice from male ­domestic violence charities - such as Mankind - who support men who are victims of domestic abuse.

Alan says he was shocked by the ­harrowing accounts he read: “I read case studies and they were quite unbelievable. They were real-life accounts and it’s amazing the kind of people it can happen to. One man I read about was a nightclub doorman. You don’t imagine someone like him suffering domestic violence at home, so it just shows that it can happen to ­anyone. It’s really shocking I think it’s a subject that ­happens more than people realise: men don’t want to talk about it – it’s kind of taboo. I hope I do this issue justice and raise awareness.”

Alan joined Coronation Street when he was a just 16-years-old and now he's 29. He says: “I get my cheek pinched a lot,” he laughs. “If I got a pound for every time ­somebody pulled my cheek and said, ‘Aaaaaaah!’ I’d be a rich man."I always smile, but inside I think, ‘I’m nearly 30, it’s getting weird now."

Alan remains firm friends with Bill Tarmey, who played Jack Duckworth. “We speak on the phone every week and I see him every other Thursday. Bill was like a father figure to me at work and that’s never gone. He misses Coronation Street so, so much. It was a huge part of his life and he dearly misses the people – he tells me all the time."

Read the full interview here.

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