Charlie Lawson doesn't think he will ever be invited back to 'crazy woke' Coronation Street

31 October 2024

Charlie Lawson doesn't think he will ever be invited back to 'Coronation Street'.

Charlie Lawson first played Jim McDonald in Coronation Street in 1989

The 65-year-old actor made his name starring as Jim McDonald in the ITV1 soap opera and initially appeared throughout the 1990s before returning sporadically in the years that followed but claimed that he doesn't understand the "crazy woke" nature of the programme these days.

He told the Daily Mirror newspaper: "It wouldn't shock me if he dies in Australia. I think it would be a terrible waste of a character, and I would stand up and have a pint and salute to him. But I wouldn't be broken-hearted because I've been back seven or eight times, for Christ's sake, since 2001 that's pretty damn good as it's 2024.

""Now I haven't been back since 2018 but the whole world has changed since then into a crazy woke sort of... it's all changed. I'm not quite sure how Jim would react to 24 genders in Weatherfield. I suspect he would probably - if the writers had the courage - I suspect he would probably say that that was nonsense."

During his time on the soap, Charlie's character was famously married to former Rovers Return landlady Liz McDonald (Beverley Callard) but their relationship was tested by alcoholism and infidelity.

They divorced in 1997 after Liz had been unfaithful to him, and they remarried in 2000 but Jim was later imprisoned for the manslaughter of drug dealer Jez Quigley (Lee Boardman), who had previously beaten his son Steve (Simon Gregson) up over a job.

Liz divorced Jim for a second time during his prison sentence, and in 2011, he tried to win her back by robbing a bank but he was put behind bars again.

In 2018, Jim returned to the series with a young woman called Hannah Gilmore (Hannah Ellis Ryan), who he falsely claims is the daughter they thought they had lost in a miscarriage years earlier and the pair were later arrested for the scam when the truth emerged.

But Charlie knew that his time on the serial was likely up for good when his on-screen ex-wife decided that she was quitting the role in 2020.

He said: "The thing was, Bev had gone and they were writers who I'd been thrilled with for years and years and years. They were struggling to know what to do with the character like Jim McDonald and consequently I was struggling with what they were writing. You know, this girl, Gwen came along and started ripping him off and he was burning furniture in the street and all that sort of stuff."