Cherylee Houston has had lots of romantic ups and downs as Izzy Armstrong on Coronation Street, but behind the scenes has been with fellow TV star Toby Hadoke for years
If you’re a fan of Coronation Street, you know Cherylee Houston – she’s played Izzy Armstrong since 2010. Izzy immediately made history on her arrival as the ITV soap’s first disabled regular character, and went on to have major storylines including entrapment by a crazed lover, a surrogate baby crisis, and even imprisonment for a drug deal.
On the show, Izzy hasn’t always been too lucky in love, turning from besotted Kirk Sunderland (Andy Whyment) to on-off partner Gary Windass (Mikey North), who becomes a different man when living with PTSD – and shockingly goes on to make a pass at Tina McIntyre when she’s carrying his and Izzy’s baby.
Thankfully, in real life Cherylee has a much happier romance – and you might just recognise her beau. She’s the longterm partner of actor and comedian Toby Hadoke, who’s managed to fit pretty much every show onto his CV. If you’re a BBC Radio listener you’ll know his voice well, and he’s got in front of the camera for shows such as Emmerdale, Shameless, and Peter Kay’s Phoenix Nights.
Juggling work and romance doesn’t seem hard for the couple, after they even appeared on Corrie together in 2021. Toby played Izzy’s neighbour Fergus, a busybody who quickly becomes very protective of Izzy in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.
His role highlighted the challenges faced by disabled people across the UK during the crisis, and when speaking about his part he was more than happy to throw the attention back to Cherylee. The duo gave a joint interview on This Morning at the time – logging in from their home during the tight restrictions.
Toby and Cherylee gave a glimpse into their front room as they video called onto national TV, and reflected on their time working together. The besotted actor gushed of his partner: «She’s great as well. She’s such a good actor. I think it’s forgotten because she’s so brilliant at bringing attention to the importance of disability representation, she’s really good.»
While Cherylee might be the Corrie star of the couple, however, Toby revealed that he has an earlier claim on the soap. He shared: «If you delve into the archives you know, I once married Curly Watts. I was a vicar.»
The comedian couldn’t resist making a bit of a dig at himself, and joked: «They wanted a young vicar at Curly Watts’ wedding. If you go back it was about 747 years ago. That was just a one-off.»
Toby has two sons from a previous relationship but has been with Cherylee for a while now – and fans are still only learning of their connection. Soap devotees on a Coronation Street Facebook page are frequently caught off-guard by their romantic link, and a recent post involving a cosy photo of the couple sparked lots of joy for Toby and Cherylee – alongside plenty of chin scratching as people listed the multiple things they may have recognised Doctor Who superfan Toby from.
«How come I recognise him?» one person asked, with another quickly clarifying: «Toby Hadoke! He’s an actor/writer/standup comedian.»
The revelation left others stunned that the TV stars were partners off-screen, with one musing: «I remember him from Corrie I think, didn’t know at the time they were together.» Another sleuth added: «Same! Think he was in Hollyoaks as well.»
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