Daniel Brocklebank has revealed viewers have given him verbal abuse off screen while others have hit out at the Street’s producers
He reveals viewers have given him verbal abuse off screen while others have hit out at the Street’s producers.
But defiant Daniel, gay in real life, doesn’t care – and hopes his storyline will change attitudes.
He says: “We’re here to cause some sort of stir and you’re never going to please everyone. Some of the religious viewers so far have not been too happy.
“A woman came up to me in a supermarket three days ago telling me I was going to go to hell playing a gay vicar. The show itself has had a backlash.”
Shakespeare In Love star Daniel, arrived on the cobbles as Rev Billy Mayhew in December and has been involved in an on-off romance with Sean Tully (Antony Cotton).
ITV 
Andrea Williams, Director of Christian Concern, said: “There’s an agenda here to normalise something contrary to the Bible.
"I look forward to the day when Coronation Street introduces a vicar who cares about pointing people away from sinful behaviour.”
But that sort of attitude is what Daniel, 35, hopes to challenge.
He says: “Having a progressive vicar in Coronation Street provides the opportunity to educate people and give them a different point of view.
“The church won’t survive if it doesn’t update. Religion should be all-loving. Why would someone gay of my age join the church when all you get is backlash?”
Figures seem to back him up. In 1968, 1.6 million regularly went to church in 1968, but that fell to a million by the mid 1990s, says the Church Society.
In 2009 it had dropped to 826,000. After landing the Billy role, Daniel did his research.
A campaigner for gay rights, he gives talks at schools and has met several gay Church of England vicars.