John Henshaw felt "privileged" to be involved in Coronation Street’s 10,000th episode.
The ‘Early Doors’ actor starred as Disco Des in the milestone ep, during which his character suffered a heart attack, and he has praised soap actors, admitting acting in such programmes is "highly underrated".
He said: "It’s a privilege to be involved. It’s such an iconic show.
"Soap acting is highly underrated. Sometimes you’ve got to have a nervous breakdown, and then two minutes later …"
John – who has previously played Mick Murphy, and a restaurant diner, in the soap over the years – praised the 10,000th episode’s writer Damon Alexis-Rochefort for managing to merge so many plots in one episode.
Speaking in a behind the scenes video shared on Corrie’s Twitter page, he wrote: "There’s that many characters involved, it’s a fantastic piece of writing.
"I write a little bit myself. To involve so many characters in criss-cross storylines must be amazingly complicated you know.
"But they do a great job of it at ‘Corrie’, as they’ve been doing for such a long time.
"And that’s thanks a lot to, should we say, the veteran actors, that have kept the boat afloat."
The episode was full of nostalgia as Rita Tanner – who has been played by Barbara Knox for 48 years – was tasked with taking her late husband Dennis Tanner’s ashes to Blackpool.
Sadly, she never made it to the seaside town because the party bus driver Des had a heart attack, so Mary Taylor (Patti Clare) ended up driving the vehicle back to Weatherfield.
And in one nostalgic scene, Rita was back in the Rovers Return while thinking about some of her legendary characters who had previously worked there, such as Bet Lynch (Julie Goodyear), Annie Walker (Doris Speed), and Hilda Ogden (Jean Alexander).
John Henshaw ‘privileged’ to be part of Corrie’s 10,000th episode
