As the then-Prince of Wales met the Coronation Street cast, Weatherfield veterans Bill Tarmey and Nigel Pivaro waited patiently alongside their co-stars for their turn for a chat with the future King.
Nigel, who played bad boy Terry Duckworth in the ITV soap, recalls: “Prince Charles was walking down the line having a chat, asking people about their background – that kind of thing.
“He asked one actor, who was standing right next to us, ‘Did you train?...’ and he replied, ‘Yes, sir. I did’.
“Bill turned to me with a glint in his eye and whispered, ‘which gym?’.”
Even now, Nigel can’t help chuckling at the memory of the set visit in 2000. “There are so many things I miss about Bill but his dry wit is definitely up there.”
This month marks 10 years since Bill died after suffering a heart attack aged 71, after more than 30 years starring as Corrie legend Jack Duckworth.
Nigel, 62, who spoke at Bill’s funeral service, says: “It’s tough thinking Bill’s been gone so long. But it always cheers me to think how lucky I was to know and spend time with him.”
The anniversary coincides with Nigel’s first major stage role in almost 20 years, in a nine-month tour with much-loved musical The Commitments.
His stage return feels especially poignant for Nigel as it will be his first time treading the boards without the support of Bill or Liz Dawn, who played his long-suffering on-screen mum Vera and who died five years ago, aged 77, after a long battle with emphysema.
He says: “Bill was a great singer and a music obsessive, so I know he would have loved seeing me in this.
“Liz was also always hugely supportive. Whenever I was doing theatre she would be in the audience; it didn’t matter where. I remember once I was shocked to see her sitting in the front row when I was doing a play in Scarborough, of all places!”
When Nigel joined the Coronation Street cast in 1983, he quickly found that Liz and Bill were as entertaining off-screen as they were on.
“They were comedy gold together whether the cameras were rolling or not,” he recalls. “Just impeccable comic timing. I realised that straight away.”
He tells how Bill introduced Liz, telling her: “Come and meet our son.”
Nigel says: “She gave me a look and said quick as a flash: ‘Oooh, you were a big lad for your mam’.”
Just as quickly, Bill retorted: “He takes after his dad.”
Nigel says: “I knew I was fortunate as a new Duckworth, to share so many scenes with them.”
Nigel had studied at the prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, so it took him a while to get used to the pair’s way of learning lines – leaving notes around the Duckworth sitting room set. He says: “They’d scribble sections of the scripts on to objects on set.
“You name it – teapots, inside of newspapers. I couldn’t touch anything!
“But it worked for them. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Nigel, who has two grown-up daughters, left the regular Corrie cast in the late 80s.
After some time as a jobbing actor, including the odd stint in panto and guest return to Corrie, he retrained as a journalist.
He worked at Greater Manchester newspaper the Tameside Reporter before becoming a freelancer for national titles including the Daily Mirror, contributing stories ranging from celebrity interviews to conflict reports from Syria.
His last major stage role was in 2003 in award-winning play Bounce alongside John Altman – fellow soap bad boy Nick Cotton of EastEnders.
Like Nigel, John also made occasional returns to his former role after leaving the regular cast. But while Nasty Nick was killed off in the 30th-anniversary episode of the BBC1 soap in 2015, the door is still ajar for Terry to return to the cobbles.
Terry was last seen in 2012 after leaving son Tommy’s girlfriend Tina for dead.
Nigel says: “At the moment he’s on the run in Spain, so he could technically come back. There’s always been a chink of light where you think Terry might just come good. Older viewers may remember that when I first appeared on the show, Terry was not a bad person. He was a wayward, put-upon lad who got progressively worse.
“It was actually his dad Jack who was the rogue – and then he mellowed, and I took over that mantle. So redemption is possible!”
He adds: “It would be interesting to have this reformed Terry – nobody would trust him, but the irony being that he had genuinely reformed.”
For now, Nigel is relishing his stage comeback, sparked after bumping into an old friend, renowned playwright Jim Cartwright.
Buoyed by Cartwright’s encouragement, he made little inroads back into the business – including some radio plays and adverts before being offered the role of Da in The Commitments.
The musical, which made its West End debut in 2013, centres on a group of working-class youths who form a soul band. Nigel has minimal singing in the role – which he says would be good news to former club singer Bill.
He says: “Bill was a real crooner – he had records in the charts while he was on the soap – so he was less than impressed with anyone singing if they hit the wrong notes. Any time I’d be singing to myself, I’d hear Bill boom, ‘Are you any good at whistling?’”
But Nigel reckons the audience will love singing along to the show’s many hits. He says: “Everyone knows the Motown songs. I think now, more than ever, audiences need some light relief and the joy of a good old singalong.”
Returning to the stage in this show is the perfect tribute to his “second dad’” on the anniversary of his death.
Nigel says: “Bill, like Liz, worked his way up through the clubs before acting – it’s one of the reasons they worked together so well. They’d have been thrilled to see me in The Commitments. But Bill will be mightly relieved I’m not singing!”
The Commitments tours the UK and Ireland until July 2023. See thecommitmentsontour.co.uk
