Charlie Lawson got emotional as he discussed suffering a stroke on stage – revealing he "went deaf" during the terrifying experience.
The ‘Coronation Street’ star – who plays no-nonsense Jim McDonald in the ITV soap – broke down as he opened up about experiencing a transient ischemic attack (TIA), also known as a mini stroke, on the opening night of play ‘Rebus’ earlier this month, and he "knew something awful had happened".
Speaking on ‘BBC Breakfast’, he said: "I was looking at John and I was aware very quickly that something was wrong. I went deaf, the colour changed, my vision changed.
"Sorry … I’m finding it quite tricky talking about this.
"The next thing was Big John [Stahl, who plays Big Ger] took his arm around me and took me off stage.
"And 20 minutes later, I knew something awful had happened. The producer was there … people who mattered, who cared about the piece were there. I went home, passed out, went to sleep, had all the scans and revealed I’d had a stroke."
Charlie – whose hearing has since returned – missed the following evening’s performance of ‘Rebus’, in which he plays the titular inspector, but returned to the stage the next day, and admits he is yet to "deal with" what happened.
He said: "I haven’t had time to deal with it, to sit down and think because two days later I was back on stage.
"I was aware for about two or three seconds that something was about to happen – I could hardly see Cathy [Tyson] and I thought John was messing me about, I thought he was saying lines from a different play.
"I’m tough as old boots and here I am sitting in a live studio, bleating."
Charlie also admitted his ‘Corrie’ comeback storyline – which saw Jim return to Weatherfield with lover Hannah Gilmore (Hannah Ellis Ryan), who pretended she was his and wife Liz McDonald’s (Beverley Callard) dead daughter Katie – "might’ve been different" if show bosses had asked him to return before he signed up to ‘Rebus’.
He added: "For those of you who thought it was complete nonsense, they asked me to come back for a year but I’d committed to ‘Rebus’.
"Had they asked me earlier when they’d got the storyline together, it might’ve been a different story."
Charlie Lawson gets emotional opening up about suffering stroke
