CORONATION Street legend Bruce Jones – aka rowdy Les Battersby – has bagged a role in the new Full Monty series.
The ITV star, 69, who played the bawdy Weatherfield patriarch between 1997 and 2007, has begun filming on the Disney+ reboot.
The eight-parter on Disney+ will see Robert Carlyle, 60, Mark Addy, 58, and Paul Barber, 71, reprise their movie roles as jobless blokes who turn to stripping to earn cash.
Lesley Sharp, 61, also returns, as well as Hugo Speer, 54, Steve Huison, 59, Tom Wilkinson, 74, and Wim Snape, 36.
The characters will be seen almost 30 years on from their big moment stripping off at a Sheffield working men’s club and will feature a new cast of their children and grandchildren.
The series, which comes from the same writers as the original film, will also show the men navigating life in a more modern Sheffield and how they overcome struggles with the crumbling healthcare and jobs market.
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Bruce played Reg in the 1997 flick and took to Twitter to reveal: “Really happy to do my first scenes today in the new #thefullmonty 8 part series for #SimonBeaufoy and @disneyplus looking for forward to the weeks ahead. #fullmontyseries.”
One fan was then quick to comment: “Fair play Bruce!”
Bruce eventually left Corrie in 2007 and has most recently starred in Dark Ditties Presents ‘Stained’ in 2021.
Bizarrely, he was also treated as a suspect in the Yorkshire Ripper case at the age of 23, after he discovered the mutilated body of Jean Jordan in 1977.
Jean, who was working a sex worker, was brutally murdered by Peter Sutcliffe after he acquired her for her services.
Bruce explained in a Netflix documentary how he was working on an allotment when he found Jean’s body.
He called police to alert them but was instead treated as a suspect.
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The accusation led to the breakdown of his marriage.
Bruce was cleared and Peter Sutcliffe was later jailed and died from Coronavirus in 2020.
