Coronation Street star making a comeback to the show 15 years after being killed off – but WON'T be seen on screen
The actor played Gail Platt's fourth husband Joe McIntyre before he met his demise after he tried to fake his death to claim insurance money.
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A Coronation Street star is making a comeback - 15 years after being killed off
Credit: X
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Reece Dinsdale revealed he's back working on the ITV soap
Credit: Rex Features
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The actor won't be reprising his role though
Credit: @reece_dinsdale/Twitter
But before ITV fans get excited, Reece won't be reprising his role - instead he's taken a job from behind the camera.
Reece has directed tonight's and Friday's episodes.
Taking to his X account, he wrote: "
Tonight's episodes of Coronation Street (and both of Friday's) are directed by yours truly. Loved every second of making them. Hope you enjoy, too!
"
Reece confirmed that the episodes were filmed around six to eight weeks ago.
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In the comment section, Reece admitted he "loves" being a director on the show as fans shared their excitement ahead of the installments.
In April, Reece revealed he was making a
He revealed he recently directed four episodes that month.
Reece is
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He has also directed 42 episodes of Emmerdale since 2020, and helmed episodes of shows such as Pitching In, Moving On, and Secrets and Words.
Coronation Street's Colson Smith reveals the moment soap boss 'binned him' from show and says 'I knew it was coming'
The actor's gig behind the camera comes after he was forced to defend his career prospects when he left Emmerdale.
In 2024, Reece announced he would be taking a break from directing the soap following the death of his mother.
He told fans: 'Following the death of my Ma (& moving house), at 64 I've taken a decision to have some time out from work. Many months in fact. I've never done that consciously.
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'I've stuff lined up down the line, so I know that's easy for me to say. However, I'm loving every bloody second of it!'
Reece also played villain Paul Ashdale on Emmerdale in 2020 for a two-year stint, before he was killed off.
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The actor has directed two episodes of Corrie this week
Credit: Handout
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Reece played Paul Ashdale on Emmerdale in 2020 for a two-year stint
Credit: ITV
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The Irish Sun
38 minutes ago
- The Irish Sun
Sunbed romps, boob contests & filthy foam parties – my VERY wild years working 18-30 hols… & which resort was the worst
From randy reps who kept count of their 'conquests' to sex in the bushes, our writer was in the thick of it when the notorious package holidays were at their messy, X-rated peak 'BUTLIN'S WITH SEX' Sunbed romps, boob contests & filthy foam parties – my VERY wild years working 18-30 hols… & which resort was the worst YOU SPOTTED them at the airport first. Anyone going on an el cheapo 18-30 holiday back in the 80s and 90s started their trip at the bar. By the time they were on the early hours flight, at least one would have puked and someone else snuck off with one of the air hostesses. Advertisement 12 Club 18-30 holidays were once a rite of passage for young Brits, like these pictured partying in Ibiza in 2001 Credit: Getty 12 The wild holidays were notorious for boozy, raunchy games Credit: Rex Features 12 Hooking up on holiday was practically part of the package deal Credit: Alex Segre 12 Sex party games were a common feature of the holidays across Europe Credit: Alamy 12 A young Sam Brick during her time filming documentaries about notorious party hotspots Advertisement A Club 18-30 was a rite of passage in the 80s and 90s. As soon as the plane landed the holiday reps - who gave an X-rated meaning to customer satisfaction - commandeered their holidaymakers marching them straight onto the shuttle coaches. No matter what time of day or night it was, boozy shots were handed out. Coaches packed with young adults - just about old enough to vote - would be whizzed off to the dingiest of hotels for a week of sun(burn), sand, sea and lots of shagging. Throughout my 20s I worked as a TV executive, overseeing shows in Mallorca's Magaluf, Greece's Malia and the worst of the lot, Ibiza's San Antonio, which should have been renamed Orgy-on-Sea. All were 18-30 hotspots and make no mistake, Brits took over any resort they landed in. Advertisement To be a holiday rep you need the drinking stamina of an elephant and the energy of the Duracell bunny Samantha Brick Now, almost a decade after Malia outlawed these boisterous holidays, The Sun revealed how tourism bosses are desperate to get us back. Known as 't*ts & tequila' tourism, 18-30 holidays were a cheap and cheerful way for skint youngsters to travel abroad and have some good old fashioned fun. It cost peanuts to get sozzled on San Miguel or Sangria. The beaches were always full. Young Brits would use the sunbeds for tanning by day and have sex by night. The locals might have moaned about cleaning up afterwards - but back then the mantra of the era was 'we're not here for a long time, we're here for a good time.' Advertisement Malia's party scene makes a comeback The kind of behaviour my generation indulged in would send most of the snowflake generation into fits. These were never holidays for the 'gram. No one was posting thirst shots or TikToks - instead they were hellbent on having a good time. For us Gen Xers, a holiday on the Med was the peak of the year. Nothing, NOTHING could spoil it for us. Suitcase lost? Oh well, we'll just wash our knickers on repeat. Flight delayed? More drinking time at the airport! We didn't do a Gen Z and complain on Twitter/X about every unanticipated spit and cough. And we definitely didn't threaten to leave bad social media reviews if there wasn't any fresh mint for our (paid for by our parents) Mojitos. Advertisement As for a spreadsheet or – even worse – an app to work out who owed what at the end of the hols? Who wants to party in the sun with the Grinch? An 18-30 holiday transformed the virgin geek into a sex god. Turned the chubby bestie who no one would look at twice back home into a come-hither sex goddess. And a banana boat inflatable zipping along the Med's waters sorted out the wimps from party animals. The 18-30 ethos was pretty much that everyone was there for cheap alcohol, sex and maybe a tan. It was Butlins spliced with booze and sex. The hotels were at best described as basic. I saw cockroaches. Dorm beds that had stains in them. Unsafe balconies that give modern day health and safety reps the willies. The pools were about as clean as a jacuzzi after a rugby team had celebrated in it. Advertisement But no one cared. No one was ever up for brekkie so who knows what was on offer. Menus were pictures of fast food and everything came with chips. The majority of teens on the holiday were usually on their first fortnight away from home. At the start of any 18-30 holiday the reps gather holidaymakers to sign up for everything from booze cruises, bar crawls, toga nights, foam parties and outings to a water park. This was how the reps made their dosh. When you're on an 18-30 holiday, signing your daily responsibilities away to someone not much older than you is obligatory. Randy contests 12 Girls were not shy of flashing in public, says Sam Credit: Alamy Advertisement 12 Racy games were organised by the holiday reps themselves Credit: Alamy 12 Daytime was for sunbathing and trying to sleep off hangovers Credit: Club 18-30 Take the first night excursion I filmed. It was a hot July night in the late Nineties. Two hundred holidaymakers poured off four coaches at an open-air nightclub in the middle of the countryside in Ibiza. While everyone is being counted off their bus, a hedgerow nearby rocks violently back and forth. 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To be a holiday rep you need the drinking stamina of an elephant and the energy of the Duracell bunny. Many burnt out or got kicked out and sent back to the UK. Advertisement But they earned every penny. If they weren't at the police station sweet-talking the release of someone from jail, they were at the local hospital getting someone else stitched up. 'Era of the wet T-shirt' 12 Even the adverts played on the risque nature of the holidays to attract clients Credit: Image Courtesy of The Advertising Archives 12 It's no surprise many parents were reluctant to let their kids go on the trips Credit: Times Newspapers Ltd The party games were notorious. Sex underpins the 18-30 experience and the games designed by the reps encourage it. Whether it is passing a water-filled condom down a line using only your thighs, or timing who can put the condom on an oiled courgette the quickest. Forfeits included wearing a condom on your head or getting a jug of sangria poured over your boobs. This was the era of the wet T-shirt competition. Advertisement My theory is the more that a girl says 'no way', the more likely you are to see her on stage, arms in the air, egging the crowd on with her soaked top clinging to her braless boobs. Foam party nights were an excuse for exhibitionist sex. Cleaners would moan about the amount of mislaid pairs of knickers they'd clean up afterwards. My life as a Club 18-30 rep By Thea Jacobs WHEN Jane Barrett turned 18, her parents refused to let her head out on a notorious Club 18-30 holiday - so a year later she got a job working for the package holiday brand in Mallorca. Her time in the party destination was certainly eye-opening and a reason Jane, from Yorkshire, believes she did well in life. Now a CEO, she did two years for Club 18-30 in 1987 and 1988 and here recalls her wildest moments from the summers of mayhem. jane tells The Sun: "It was the worst job in the world but also the best job in the world. 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The Irish Sun
4 hours ago
- The Irish Sun
How TV star Jussie Smollett's ‘race attack' hoax that rocked tinderbox US was exposed by clues including a sandwich bag
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Henson Credit: Handout 12 Jussie was eventually jailed over the claims Credit: The Mega Agency 12 CCTV footage released by Chicago Police shows two 'people of interest' in the 'attack' Credit: AP:Associated Press The horrifying 'attack' sent shockwaves around the world, coming at a time of racially-charged tensions and claims of police corruption in Chicago, where Smollett alleged the incident took place, and other cities across America. Messages of support for the actor, now 43, flooded in from celebrities and even President Donald Trump, with cops put under huge pressure to solve the case. Josie Duffy Rice, a criminal justice journalist, says: 'You don't put a noose around anybody's neck for any other reason than they are black. Lynching is coming back, right? That was the undertone. It felt like a threat against anybody black.' Melissa Staples, former chief of detectives at Chicago Police, adds: 'That is something I have never come across in an investigation in 30 years. 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Jussie Smollett's conviction for fake hate attack overturned as court cites Bill Cosby case as example in shock reversal Hoax unravels Smollett had gone out in freezing temperatures in the middle of the night to get some food when he claimed he was attacked on Chicago's East Lower North Water Street on January 29, 2019. He returned to his apartment with the noose still around his neck and his friend called the police to report the hate crime. But alarm bells soon started to ring for the detectives in charge of the case. Eddie Johnson, former superintendent of Chicago Police, says: 'To think that I had two white guys attack a black man in this city was disgusting to me. But some things kind of struck me as a little odd. "We were going through the polar vortex at the time and I was thinking to myself, 'Who is out in the street with it being cold as s**t out there?' 'We had video of Jussie Smollett when he came back into his building after the crime had occurred so that's when we saw the Subway sandwich bag in his hand, that was in pristine condition. "And I'm like wait a minute, most victims of an assault like that, they are trying to get the heck out of dodge, because let's face it who says that these guys that assaulted him won't come back? "The last thing you are worried about is grabbing a sandwich bag, so that was a little odd to me. I believe he wanted to be the poster boy of activism for black people, for gay people or for marginalised people Bola 'Then there was the initial video of him in his apartment with the noose. He says to the officers, 'Yeah this is the noose that they used, I just want you all to see it', then he calmly takes it from around his neck and then rolls it up like it's a prop. "Now my family is from the Deep South in Alabama so I saw some things growing up. I don't know of many black people, if there was a noose around their neck, they are not going to leave it on there. They are going to treat it with disdain and disgust. That was a little cause for concern. Then we asked Jussie for his phone. He doesn't want to give it to us so of course that raised a lot of suspicion on our part.' Suspects puzzle Cops reviewed hours and hours of CCTV footage and found no evidence of an assault. Taxi records from the night of the attack identified two main suspects who were dropped off near the scene of the alleged crime - but puzzlingly, they were two black men, Ola and Bola Osundairo. And far from being total strangers to Jussie Smollett, they had both worked as extras on the Empire series - and one was his personal trainer. Then detectives discovered that the night after the incident the Osundairo brothers had flown to Nigeria. On their return cops were waiting to arrest them on the runway. 12 Abimbola 'Abel' (left) and Olabinjo 'Ola' Osundairo were found to be pals of Smollett Credit: Instagram 12 The pair were paid over $3,000 by Smollett 12 The actor outside the courthouse in 2019 Credit: Getty Images - Getty Police showed Smollett the men's pictures and he said it was impossible that they were his attackers. He says: 'I was friends with one brother, he was also working as my trainer. There was absolutely no reason whatsoever that I could think that they would do it.' But Jussie later gave a TV interview about his attack and identified two men pictured on CCTV as his attackers - unaware that police had IDed them as the Osundairo brothers. And when the pair's lawyer Gloria Rodriguez showed them the footage, they were furious and agreed to talk to the police. The brothers claimed that Jussie had received a threatening letter in the post a week before the attack, but he said the Empire film studio weren't taking it seriously. So he asked Bola - who he had become friends with - to beat him up. Bola says: 'I believe he wanted to be the poster boy of activism for black people, for gay people or for marginalised people.' Ola adds: 'I thought it was crazy but at the same time it was Hollywood. So I don't know, I'm a baby in it. This is what they do, this is how it goes.' Steroid cash claim Smollett paid the brothers $3,500 by cheque and they went ahead with the plan. Eddie Johnson says: 'Now the brothers had given us enough evidence to prove that he was not telling the truth. I was like we've got this dude now.' But Jussie had gone AWOL. Tina Glandian, attorney at Geragos and Geragos, a firm that has represented infamous stars such as Andrew Tate and Chris Brown, was drafted in by Jussie Smollett's employers at Fox. Police alleged that Smollett had sent himself the threatening letter, and then when that didn't get enough attention from Fox, he set up the staged attack in a bid to get a salary increase. And that is when the public turned on him. Smollett says: 'Eddie Johnson said things that are factually untrue. That I lied because I was dissatisfied with my pay on Empire. "Let me just break that down. My relationship with Fox was very good. I was making great money as an actor, and I was also now making great money as a director.' Smollett claims that he had paid Bola the $3,500 not to stage an attack, but to buy him an illegal herbal steroid from Nigeria to help him lose belly fat. 12 Former cop Eddie Johnson says Smollett's story didn't add up 12 The actor tells his side of the story in the show Credit: AP 12 CCTV images of the night of the attack Credit: © 2025 Netflix, Inc. Dropped from show Jussie Smollett was charged with filing a false police report and was written out of Empire. But after a meeting between his lawyers and the prosecutors, a deal was reached and the charges were dropped. Smollett says: 'My lawyer then comes to me, she says they are offering that if you forfeit your bond for $10,000 and we can show them that you are a good citizen, they will drop this and they will let this go. "If this continues, this will go on for at least two years, your career will stall and people will forget about you. And it was because of that that I made the decision and said we will do it. 'I can't say I was happy when the charges were dropped because I feel like the charges should never have been brought to begin with.' Meanwhile, the cops who had investigated the case were furious and a special prosecutor was brought in to look at it again. I thought it was crazy but at the same time it was Hollywood. So I don't know, I'm a baby in it. Ola Smollett was once again charged and faced trial. His lawyers claimed to have found two witnesses from the night of the attack - one a hotel security guard who had seen a white man in a balaclava running past, and one of Jussie's neighbours who saw a man with a piece of white rope hanging out of his jacket outside their apartment building. Despite this new evidence, he was found guilty and sentenced to 150 days in jail, although he served only six days behind bars after he launched an appeal. Jussie Smollett still maintains his innocence, with the Netflix documentary hearing claims he believes back up his version of events. A documentary maker and freelance journalist investigating the case claim CCTV they have seen of the suspects from the night of the alleged attack clearly shows that they were two white men, though this is disputed by others who appear in the film. In November last year, the Illinois Supreme Court overturned Smollett's conviction, saying the prosecutors could not go after him again after the original deal they made with him. The Truth About Jussie Smollett? Is on Netflix from August 22. 12 Smollett leaves the Cook County Jail in March 2022 after an appeals court agreed with his lawyers that he should be released Credit: AP
The Irish Sun
7 hours ago
- The Irish Sun
I'm A Celeb star ‘depressed and infuriated' after he's banned from driving by DVLA at 76 years old
The star sought out further medical help in a bid to be allowed back out onto the roads wheels come off I'm A Celeb star 'depressed and infuriated' after he's banned from driving by DVLA at 76 years old AN I'm A Celebrity star has revealed he has been left "infuriated" after being banned from driving at the age of 76. Christopher Biggins, who appeared on the ITV reality show in 2009, has hit out at the DVLA for revoking his license. 3 Biggins has been booted off the roads and banned from driving Credit: Getty 3 The I'm A Celeb star saw his license revoked by the DVLA Credit: Rex Advertisement The actor and panto star was informed earlier this year that his driving licence had expired and as such would need an eye test in order to get it back. The Daily Mail reports how Biggins went to an optician in Stratford, East London for his eye examination but soon discovered that he had failed and as such had been banned from driving with immediate effect due to no longer having a valid licence. Confirming the situation, Biggins said: "Ten days later [after the eye test], I got a letter from the DVLA saying I had failed my test and I wouldn't be getting my license back." Furious at the decision, Biggins decided to book himself in for further eye tests. Advertisement This included a visit to a doctor at Homerton Hospital who informed him he had a clean bill of health as well as a second visit at a seperate opticions. Both practitioners provided Biggins with letters to support their findings which he sent off to the DVLA - but the driving association refused to give the TV star his licence back and argued that what he had provided "does not show that you are able to meet the required medical standards for driving". With Biggins maintaining that his eye sight has never changed, he has blasted the DVLA and said their decision has left him "depressed" and out-of-pocket after having to stump up regularly for taxis. He told the Mail: "How can they disregard a hospital doctor and another optician? It has left me very depressed. Advertisement "I travel a lot and I need to drive. Not long distance, for that I take the train. "It is costing me a fortune in taxis. It is very unfair. I'm absolutely infuriated with their 'computer says no' attitude." EXCL I was paid £50,000 to do I'm A Celeb - what ITV is giving stars now is ludicrous, says Christopher Biggins It comes after the Labour government revealed their plans for drivers over the age of 70 to undergo mandatory eye tests every three years in order to prove they have sufficient eyesight to be on the roads. Further driving proposals also include reducing the drink-drive limit and tougher penalties on uninsured drivers and those who fail to wear a seatbelt. They will belong to a new road safety strategy that the government plans to publish this autumn. Advertisement The change would mark the biggest shake-up of driving rules for nearly two decades, since the Road Safety Act introduced under Tony Blair in 2006. In response, a spokesperson for the DVLA told the Mail of Biggins' case: "While we cannot comment on individual cases, all drivers must meet minimum eyesight standards to drive a vehicle. "Whether a driver meets the eyesight standards can be tested through various means, including visual field and acuity, depending on the circumstances. "These standards apply to all drivers and, if someone does not meet the required standards they cannot be allowed on the road." 3 The decision has left the star 'depressed' Credit: Getty
