Vinta Morgan has teased what is to come for Ronnie and Debbie over Christmas on Coronation Street. The actor, 57, has played Ronnie Bailey on the ITV soap since 2021 and earlier this year, his character married hotelier Debbie Webster (Sue Devaney) as part of the programme's crossover with Emmerdale.
Debbie is currently at the centre of a long-running storyline about vascular dementia, having been diagnosed with the condition almost 18 months ago. It was previously confirmed that Debbie will be killed off as part of the sad storyline, and now Vinta has insisted that they are "not going to sugar-coat" the realities of it all as the soap shifts towards the festive period.
Christmas scenes and a roller-coaster ride
"Christmas has got some beautiful scenes! What the audience can get more of is that there's going to be some downs, but there's going to be some ups."
"There are going to be some moments where the audience will go, 'Oh, if they could just be trapped in that moment!' We'll let them stay in that moment for a bit, and then he's going to go on a roller-coaster ride where we're going to go down into the depths of some really dark stuff."
"Which is still going to have some light and love in it, of course, that's the whole thing that makes it excruciating. But it's really going to go into the realms of what the reality is like, really."
"We're not going to sugarcoat it; we're going to show it for what it is. Hopefully, it will develop conversations and help raise awareness."
Ronnie's struggle as a carer
But Vinta explained that as Ronnie moves into becoming Debbie's carer as well as her husband, he will begin to struggle in his own way and eventually have to ask for help.
He added: "At first, he doesn't want to show Debbie that he's struggling. That's a signature of his character in a way, he doesn't want anybody to know he's struggling. But his saving grace is that he understood that he needs support. Asha actually tells him about this support group because of a conversation about her, Sienna, and Sienna's mum going through it."
"So he rocks up there, and it's a revelation for him because he realises that he's not alone, that the things he's dealing with are not in isolation from others, and it gives him a well of support and an understanding of how he has to go about it. But he's not a man to keep things from his wife. She happens to chance upon a thrown-away leaflet in the bin, discovers it, and they have the conversation."
"He explains to her that he is going to these meetings, and then she asks if she can come with him. He has to gently break it to her after a while that it would be best for him to go alone because it's really for the carer. It's the first time they've spoken openly where he's identified himself as a carer."
Coronation Street airs weeknights at 8:30pm on ITV1 and ITV X.
