Coronation Street star Georgia Taylor confirms new deal with soap

Coronation Street's Georgia Taylor has confirmed that she'll be playing Toyah Battersby for at least another year, having signed a new deal with the long-running ITV soap.

In a new interview with The Mirror, the actor said that "there's still a huge amount to do with the character" and that she's "very happy to be sticking around".

Taylor teased what's in store for Toyah too, explaining that her "fiery side" is set to come out again, after learning that her partner Imran Habeeb (Charlie de Melo) had a drunken one-night stand not so long ago.

georgia taylor as toyah battersby in coronation street

ITV

"I feel like Toyah has been there for everyone else over the past couple of years and it's time for her to stand up for herself," said Taylor, nodding to the fact that Toyah only knows about the dalliance right now, and not who it was with.

"I've been a bit desperate for this revelation to come out – the bit of it that Toyah knows anyway – and it looks like she's finally reaching the end of her tether. She's never going to be that 16-year-old again, the one who would have gone in and trashed The Kabin, but I think a bit more Battersby attitude from her is definitely a good thing."

Having joined the show aged 17 back in 1997, Taylor left Toyah behind in 2003, before returning to the role 13 years later, in 2013.

toyah battersby and imran habeeb in coronation street

ITV

"The first five-and-a-half years felt like a lifetime. It was enormous," she recalled. "It was my first job, pretty much straight out of school, and it made such a big mark on my life.

"It's a weird thing to look back at myself at the beginning and I can't believe how much we took it all in our stride, Jane [Danson, who plays Toyah's stepsister Leanne] and I, given how young we were and how well known we became so quickly."

Coronation Street airs on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 7.30pm and 8.30pm.