Tracy Barlow to return to Weatherfield

Actress Kate Ford is set to return to Coronation Street as the wayward Barlow this spring. Corrie viewers will see Tracy in prison where she’ll become embroiled in a story involving another well loved character. Ken and Deirdre’s only daughter is currently serving a jail sentence for murdering her boyfriend and Corrie bad boy builder Charlie Stubbs. After this initial first stint of a couple of months, Tracy will be back in Weatherfield again at the end of the year in time for the soaps 50th anniversary.

Tracy first appeared in 1977 as Ray and Deidre Langton’s newborn. However its only her early years which were happy ones in Weatherfield. After the Langtons spit, and Deidre’s subsiquent marriage to Ken Barlow, the young Tracey found her first major storyline was one of teasing. Others at school wanted to know why she was Tracey Langton and her mother Mrs Barlow! It set the character on its course of un-happy storylines. By the 1990s Tracey, when not spending months on end ‘listening to tapes in her bedroom’ she was, as Corrie.net describe her “a sullen, trouble making teen.”

Over the years four actresses have played the part, but the last – Kate Ford – took Tracey to new levels of deceitful, and near-on evil. Married twice, she had a fling with Steve MacDonald – resulting in a child, Amy. However Tracey blamed innocent and, frankly weird, Roy Cropper as the father. In January 2007, Tracy murdered partner Charlie Stubbs after discovering his affair with Maria. She lulled him into a false sense of security by giving him a lap-dance before battering his skull in with a statue. However, she portrayed herself as a victim of domestic abuse to her neighbours in order to get away with her murderous plans. While the likes of Clare and Deidre might have been fooled – Tracey just couldn’t fool the members of the Jury and she was found guilty of Charlie’s murder and is currently serving time for it.

Actress Kate Ford won several British Soap Awards during her time on Coronation Street. In 2004 and 2005 she won the “Best Bitch” category and in 2007 won Best Actress and Best Storyline at the awards ceremony. Her return to the soap has long been rumoured especially with the Granada soap celebrating its 50th anniversary this year but producers have always denied their were any such plans until now. Also rumoured to return alongside Kate Ford was actress Tina O’Brien who played Sarah Louise Platt but her return looks unlikely after tabloids report she has landed a role in BBC drama Waterloo Road.