Coronation Street viewers have sparked a debate over whether character Simon Barlow should be recast.
Alex Bain has played Simon for eleven years. The 17-year-old actor joined the Corrie cast in 2008 as Peter Barlow’s son Simon.
The actor has been involved in a lot of hard-hitting storylines in his time on the show including dealing with the loss of his mother Lucy, his fathers alcoholism and physically abusing adopted mother Leanne.
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In Friday night’s scenes (April 26) viewers saw Peter struggling to cope without Carla who went missing a couple of weeks ago after suffering with psychosis.
As Peter went to hit the bottle again, Simon went to take a drink but as Peter went to stop him he smashed the glass against the wall as Simon screamed at him “Stop it. Stop it dad. Stop it. I don’t want you to drink, I don’t want you to end up dead.”
Both Peter and Simon broke down crying and hugged each other in emotional scenes which could have brought a tear to viewers eyes.
However, some fans have started a debate on a Digital Spy forum as to whether the character of Simon should be re-cast.
The forum titled: “Coronation Street must recast Simon Barlow” starts with a user saying: “Excruciating scenes tonight.”
A second agreed adding: “Chris aka Peter was great but shouty Simon was awful and I couldn’t take the scene seriously.”
A third put: “He over-acts. There’s no subtlety to his performances, just over the top snarling.”
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Disagreeing with these comments, a lot of viewers came to Alex’s defence.
One wrote: “I don’t see anything wrong with the actor.”
Another put: “I actually thought the end scene was fantastic.”
Another viewer added: “I thought Simon was fantastic last night. He’s had a turbulent childhood and this was the end result.
“He delivered his scenes with the right amount of frustration and pain. I don’t get the hate towards him, he’s nowhere near as bad as some of the older characters on there.”
Another added: “I thought he was good in last night’s scenes (in fact I thought he was better than Chris).”
Alex welcomed his first child with 16-year-old girlfriend Levi Selby back in December last year.
Coronation Street is on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 7.30pm and 8.30pm, with an extra episode on Thursday at 8.30pm on ITV.
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