Coronation Street’s Alan Halsall: ‘Tyrone is blinded by his dad’

Coronation Street star Alan Halsall has explained his character Tyrone’s behaviour around his recently-arrived dad Ross (Ian Burfield).

Ross arrived in Weatherfield earlier this year after being tracked down through DNA testing by Tyrone’s daughters and has become an increasingly-sinister presence in his son’s life, showing signs of toxic masculinity and misogyny.

In this week’s episodes Ross manipulates Tyrone into a row with Chesney (Sam Aston), one that escalates into him punching his brother-in-law.

“So early on, Tyrone was just so excited and nervous, as you would be at that age, to have a dad figure in your life again,” explained Corrie stalwart Halsall. “He’s kind of blinded by the fact that he wants to get to know this guy who’s biologically his father.

“He doesn’t really know much about him, and while he can see that Fiz and Ross are clashing, Tyrone just thinks that’s part and parcel of it. He’s not really seeing any of the negative stuff from Ross.  Tyrone is just blinded by wanting this relationship so bad that he’s willing to look past things or not see them in the first place.”

He added: “Bless him, I think he just wants an extra family unit because that’s what he’s always been about, trying to be a family man when he never really had a family. At one point he had all the pieces of the jigsaw, and then his mum went.

“It’s easy to forget that Tyrone had no family originally. Jackie obviously wasn’t his mum, Jack and Vera raised him, and then all of a sudden he’s got his Nana, his biological mum, and at that time his dad, and his own children, plus Fiz. He thought, ‘Wow, this is brilliant, I’m a real family man again.’

“Now his mum’s gone and Nana’s away at university, so they’ve left him. Nana especially could have steered him onto the right track regarding Ross. But he’s just not seeing the danger signs with Ross because he just wants another part of his family.”

Halsall went on to hint that the wedge Ross is driving between Tyrone and Fiz (Jennie McAlpine) could have more serious consequences.

“That’s the great thing with this storyline—it’s a family drama within the walls of a house, not pulling guns or crashing cars on the streets,” he continued.

“It’s that domestic turmoil of Fiz questioning, ‘Is this who Tyrone really wants to be? This isn’t the man I married,’ while Tyrone thinks, ‘Fiz is going over the top again, do I really need this?’

“It’s that multi-generational family trouble that a lot of people go through, and these are great stories to be part of, especially involving our child actors.”

New episodes of Coronation Street drop weekdays at 7am on ITVX and air the same night on ITV1.