Jenny Connor gets too close for comfort to hubby Johnny’s criminal past in dramatic Corrie scenes this week.
She finds a note from Johnny saying he’s gone to the police to admit what happened with crooked pal Scott all those years ago.
Jenny phones him but armed Scott grabs the phone and tells Johnny to go home or he will shoot her.
Masked Scott also orders Ray Crosby and a pal to hand over cash before the gun goes off and PC Craig Tinker slumps to the floor.
Sally Ann Matthews, who plays Jenny, said: “She liked that he [Johnny] was a bit of a bad boy. But this kind of past – so violent – she doesn’t know what to do with it.”
Actress Sally has told that she is delighted that her character Jenny’s marriage to Johnny will soon be on the rocks – because being happily married in Weatherfield is “boring and dull”.
The Rovers landlady next week discovers what Johnny has spent his whole life trying to bury – he has a serious criminal past from his youth after a robbery went wrong.
Now he is being blackmailed into one final job and the soap plot takes a violent turn next week, leaving policeman Craig Tinker (Colson Smith) fighting for his life.
Sally Ann, 50, says she doesn’t know if Johnny and Jenny will survive as a couple. “You can only be happy for so long,” she reasoned. “I don’t know what’s going to happen with them. Audiences like to see a couple that can stay together – but that is pretty boring, that’s dull. They have to have challenges and this is that.
“She knew he wasn’t whiter than white and was a bit of a wide-boy but thought maybe that he was just selling some dodgy tape recorders, something low level. She quite liked that he was a bit of a bad boy with an edge. But this kind of past – so violent and so serious – she doesn’t know what to do with it.”
The actress, whose soap dad Alan Bradley tried to kill Jenny’s foster mother Rita Fairclough in 1989, says she has loved filming the rows and emotional scenes. “I hate stunts and action – don’t make me run or shoot someone or that palaver. I prefer 10 pages of dialogue, so I’m in heaven.”
