Whenever Coronation Street legend Kevin Kennedy sets foot back on home turf in Manchester he knows a certain rumour mill will inevitably start to turn.
And just to add further fuel to the fire, Kevin says he will be heading back to the cobbles of Corrie this week while on a break from performing on stage at Manchester Opera House in musical Rock of Ages.
Kevin famously played Corrie's Curly Watts in the soap for 20 years in the 1980s and 90s. He remains one of the show's best-loved characters, who fans regularly demand should make a return.
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When he bumped into his soap pal Alan Halsall while both were on holiday last summer, the Corrie reunion sent fans into overdrive yet again, demanding he make a return. And he says a planned visit to see his old friends among cast and crew at ITV studios this week will inevitably get tongues wagging again.
Kevin, 61, says he's used to it now - and is delighted that the character is still so loved to this day. Kevin laughs: "I've no doubt at all that the rumours will start when I'm back in Manchester.
"I usually pop into the studios to say hello to my mates in the cast and crew as well, and no doubt if anyone see me there, it will be the same sort of thing, people asking if I'm going back to Corrie. It's no bad thing, I'm very happy about it.
"It's a very humbling experience for any actor, writer, poet or artist because you want your stuff to be remembered don't you? So I find it very humbling that people still remember Curly and want him back."
As to whether he would be up for a soap return? He smiles: "I would love to go back, because I'm very fond of it. Coronation Street is a storyteller, I'm a storyteller, if there's a great Curly story that comes up it would be fun."
While Curly was best known for his romance with legendary barmaid Raquel (played by Happy Valley's Sarah Lancashire) in his Corrie heyday, he says he could see modern-day Curly having some decent banter with modern-day Rovers diva Glenda Shuttleworth if he did return.
Glenda is played by his real-life mate Jodie Prenger and Kevin says: "Jodie and I go way back so it would be a joy to work with her. But we are terrible gigglers, which might be a bit of a disaster for Corrie."
While Corrie fans can live in hope of Curly's Corrie return, in the meantime Kevin is busy entertaining thousands of fans on stage each night. He is playing the role of rocker Dennis Dupree in the ongoing "farewell" tour of the rock n roll musical Rock of Ages and loving every minute of it.
He said: "It's been brilliant, audiences have been great, it's that kind of show that's the perfect antidote after what we've all been through. It's not a deep thinker, it's just fun from beginning to end.
"It's got something for everyone," he laughs: "Scantily clad men and women, and a very funny and irreverent script and brilliant songs."
Since leaving Corrie, Kevin has had a successful career in musicals and theatre - and says: "It was 20 years on the telly and 20 years on the boards doing various things.
"A lot of that has been musicals because that's what the public want to see, and that's fine because we all need that escapism right now."
Kevin, from Wythenshawe, now lives in Brighton with his family, but always loves coming back home to Manchester, saying: "It's where life makes sense. There's trams and everything."
He's famously a huge Manchester City fan, although his work schedule and life in the South means he had to give up his season ticket, although he still pops back for the occasional game. He says: "The club are very good to me, in the 80s when we were not having the best of times I was the only idiot on the telly who would be seen to support them, and they've never forgotten that.
"I've been in some strange places watching that team literally around the globe. I've even wandered around the streetes of the Bahamas looking for a telly to watch the game on in the early hours of the morning."
One of the joys of being home this week means he'll get to visit his mum in Manchester for Mother's Day, and his family and friends will come to see him in the show.
"It's always a good week for me if I know I'm in Manchester, I love walking around the city. Although I'm a bit like "where's the underground market gone?"
And in a strange bit of synchronicity, while Kevin plays the Opera House in Manchester, one of his pals in his band The Borderline back in the 80s, Ged Graham, headlines the Palace Theatre just down the road in Seven Drunken Nights.
He beams: "Two sons of Manchester, who have been in every single Irish pub in the city, now playing two of the biggest theatres in the city."
Rock of Ages is at Manchester Opera House until Saturday, March 18
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