When the actor Stephen Hancock, who has died aged 89, refused to sign a new contract with Coronation Street on a matter of principle – getting a better deal for many of his fellow cast – he consigned his character, the shy, mild-mannered Ernest Bishop, to the soap’s first violent death. As the wages clerk at Mike Baldwin’s factory, Emily Bishop’s husband was fatally shot in a bungled robbery.
Hancock had no gripe about his own contract, but told the programme’s producer, Bill Podmore, that the wages structure was not fair to some of the actors, with a handful of longer-serving ones getting a better deal. His call for justice echoed some of the traits of his character, who was a lay preacher. However, Podmore was not moved to change a long-established system and there were no complaints from other cast members, so Hancock was written out.
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