The actor on being ‘Curly’ Watts for 20 years, beating his addiction and playing the same festival as Johnny Cash

Born in 1961 in Wythenshawe, Manchester, Kevin Kennedy is best known for playing Norman “Curly” Watts on ITV soap opera Coronation Street. The  Manchester Polytechnic graduate portrayed the supermarket worker from 1983 to 2003, as well as sustaining a career in music as a solo artist and in bands. He has appeared in musicals including We Will Rock You and Rock of Ages, and stars in Punk Off – The Sounds of Punk and New Wave, which tours until 7 March.

That Barbour jacket and I have been through a lot together. Being Curly was always comforting, like putting on a pair of slippers you’ve worn for years.

Ahead of next month’s Olivier awards, photographer David Levene reveals the secrets of life backstage in London’s West End, capturing the likes of Steve Coogan, Vanessa Williams, Paapa Essiedu and John Lithgow as they prepare for performance

Lightbulb-wreathed mirrors, wigs and makeup artists, a sense of faded glamour: the backstage dressing room has its very own lore in Theatreland. It is a private space for a company of actors to gear up or wind down, in between slipping into character, but it’s so much more than that. Films such as All About Eve and John Cassavetes’s Opening Night, as well as plays such as Ronald Harwood’s The Dresser, show this space bristling with tension, vulnerability and rivalries. And Judi Dench has spoken about the fun to be had in this other, unseen side of the proscenium arch (including accidentally flashing Kenneth Branagh).

Denise Gough (centre), who plays Emma in People, Places and Things, chats with her fellow Emmas during the interval at the Trafalgar Studios theatre.

Local MP writes to authorities over ‘irresponsible’ motorists flocking to see sunrise and sunset at Mam tor

An MP has called for action on irresponsible parking at Peak District beauty spots that he says is being fuelled by a TikTok craze.

Jon Pearce, the Labour MP for High Peak in Derbyshire, said people had been flocking to the area to see the sunrise and sunset at Mam tor.