Coronation Street star Julie Goodyear reveals she was nearly fired after pulling sex toy prank

Actor pulled the stunt with her co-star and on-screen husband Roy Barraclough

(PA)

Coronation Street star Julie Goodyear has revealed she was nearly fired from the series after pulling a NSFW prank on set.

The actor – who portrayed Bet Lynch in the popular soap – opened up about the incident during a recent appearance on the YouTube show Your Manchester.

Goodyear explained that she and her co-star Roy Barraclough (who had played her husband Eric Gilroy) once appeared in a bedroom scene during which he brought out a vibrator as a prank.

The actor went on to reveal that in response she pressed a button on the novelty pyjamas that she was wearing, which played the famous 1988 track “The Only Way Is Up” by Yazz.

She said: “We hadn’t been in the bed very long – only five seconds. All I could hear was buzzing. And it was the vibrator he’d got under the covers. So I thought right, ok.”

The 79-year-old continued: “The crew, everybody, were all in hysterics. So I pressed my pyjama top – it played ‘The Only Way Is Up’. It made the crew worse. We were threatened with the sack. I wish we could see it again.”

Goodyear added that bosses of the long-running soap opera scrapped the scene.

The actor first joined the ITV series as Bet in 1966, later returning in 1970 to begin a lengthy stint on the programme as the landlady of the Rovers Return pub.

Goodyear quit the series in 1995, but has made numerous cameo appearances since then.