Todd Grimshaw

Character
Name:	Todd Grimshaw
Occupation:	student, hospital porter
Relationships:	ex-boyfriend Karl Foster ex-fiancée Sarah Platt mother Eileen Grimshaw friend Sean Tully
Fandom:	Coronation Street
Other:
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Todd Grimshaw was the first regular character to come out as gay in the British soap Coronation Street, a storyline that engaged fans in many ways.

Canon overview

Todd arrived in Coronation Street in 2001, following mother Eileen and half-brother Jason, and was primarily engaged in storylines with the other teenaged characters. In October 2003, Todd kissed Nick, brother of his girlfriend Sarah, but denied he was gay and was determined to make his relationship with Sarah work, and persuaded Sarah to keep the baby when she found herself pregnant fairly soon afterwards. However, in the spring Todd met Karl Foster, they became friends and then lovers. Wavering between wanting to pursue a relationship with Karl or stay with Sarah and get married, Todd eventually choose Sarah, but ended up coming out to her in May 2004. Sarah was understandably devastated, but picked herself up. She had already had problems with the pregancy, and the baby was born prematurely and died, with her family and friends blaming Todd, and her stepfather beating Karl up. Karl disappeared from the storyline at this point, to make a brief visit to talk things over with Todd a couple of months later. Todd himself left the show in September 2004, about to get back to college to re-sit his A-Levels and feeling betrayed by Sarah and Jason who had now started a relationship.

Todd made a brief return to the show in October 2007 in time for Jason and Sarah's wedding.

Fan response

The kiss with Nick and the resulting storyline of confusion and eventual coming-out sparked many fans' interest in Todd, even if they had not been watching Coronation Street previously. On Digital Spy messageboards, discussion on the spoilers for the storyline led into Corrie's Unhappy Father Todd To Be Snared thread becoming a community discussing spoilers and episodes, writing fic and creating art and vids.

There was a sense of disappointment when fans learnt mid-story that the actor playing Todd, Bruno Langley, would be leaving in September, which meant that there would be no sustained, long-term storylines for a gay character after the initial coming-out story. This, combined with fans liking the pairing of Todd with Karl, in addition to a sense of betrayal when Karl just faded away when the coming-out storyline had come to a close with the death of the baby, probably fuelled the Bring Back Karl petition. The petition gathered the signatures of hundreds of fans, and was cited by one of the reasons for the brief return of Karl for a couple of episodes in August 2004 to reconcile with Todd.

Fanworks

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