Coronation Street Wiki:Regular/guest cast

Like many other soap operas, Coronation Street has a regular cast who portray the main characters, and guest actors who portray minor characters supporting the show's storylines.

Guest actors tend to range from those who play policemen and the like to recurring roles. Sometimes it is hard to establish who is/was a member of the regular cast and who isn't.

Guidelines

 * An actor is generally considered part of the regular cast when their character appears as one of the main residents of a house in the Street for at least a few months and/or appears consistently for a period of about one year.
 * Sometimes, an actor is "promoted" to regular when their character is heavily involved in multiple storylines, which often causes their character to develop and become establised. In contrast, other characters are introduced for a single storyline, serve their purpose, and leave.
 * Occasionally, a character may seem to have appeared in a large amount of episodes and still be deemed a guest. This is often because their character is involved in a single ongoing storyline and likely appears frequently in a short period. On the other hand, some regular characters appear less frequently but for longer, often living on the Street at the same time.
 * Generally, when an actors contract is renewed they become part of the regular cast. However, if they leave at the end of their initial contract they should most likely be considered a guest. This is an issue with older actor contracts since it's harder to find details of them from the past whilst for more recent characters it's easier.

Manual of style

 * Members of the regular cast are placed in the "Regular cast" section of an article about an episode they appeared in, whilst guest actors are placed in the "Guest cast" section.
 * Despite whether an actor has reprised their role as a "guest" when they had previously been part of the regular cast, they are still placed in the "Regular cast" section of an episode article.
 * Regular characters have notes for their first/final appearances in the relevant episode articles. Minor characters usually don't but sometimes first/last appearances of guest actors are so far apart that notes are of interest (e.g. Dave Smith). Also, if a guest actor appears in rather a lot of episodes, their first/final appearances should be noted.
 * Regular characters are placed in categories by year of debut and departure, whilst characters played by guest actors are placed in minor characters by year.
 * All regular characters should have a "list of appearances" page. Minor characters get one when their character appears in 50 or more episodes, while still being deemed a guest (e.g. Frank Foster). Otherwise, the list of appearances is placed on the particular character page.
 * Regular characters who are currently appearing in the show are listed on the Current characters page and placed in the corresponding category. Guest actors don't, despite whether they are quite possibly portraying a recurring role.