Coronation Street’s Norris Cole will return early next year

MALCOM Hebden will reprise his role as Norris Cole as he returns to Coronation Street for a short stint next year.

The 78-year-old actor took time off from the ITV soap earlier this year to recover from a heart attack, and show boss Iain MacLeod has confirmed the star will be back in 2019 in a "sort of cameo".

He said: "He's back for a short stint in a little sort of cameo return in the hope we can have him back permanently in the future.

"He's on that list of Emily Bishops of characters who are so Corrie that the show doesn't feel correct without them in there.

"Soap characters come and go - but I am reading bits in the scripts where I know Norris would have something to say."

Malcolm is yet to read his comeback script, but Iain admitted the storyline is "pleasantly silly".

He added to Digital Spy: "His return story is pleasantly silly and revisits his relationship with Mary in a meaningful way. I hope Malcolm likes it, he's not read the script yet."

This comes just months after Patti Clare - who plays Norris' eccentric wife Mary Taylor - hinted her co-star will be back on our screens next year.

She said: "Norris is in Peru with Emily at the moment. So she [Mary] speaks to him often on the phone.

"So yes, there's a faint sort of whisper that he might be back maybe next year."

In July, Malcolm revealed he had suffered a massive heart attack which left him in a three-week-long induced coma in December 2017.

He said: "Most of December I was in an induced coma, in the care of these brilliant, wonderful people at the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit (CICU).

"Fortunately, I didn't realise how bad it was; I was dying. The cardiac team, headed by Mr Zacharias, simply saved my life."

He spent nearly three months in hospital and came round "some time in January" before being discharged in February.