Simon Gregson has played one man for more than thirty-five years, and the man has become one of television's great losers: Steve McDonald, who starts every explanation already knowing it will not be believed. It is a small art, done well, and we rate it.
Fi1m perspective
Watch Steve McDonald begin a sentence. The shoulders go first, then the eyes, which look for the door, and by the time the words arrive he has already conceded the argument he is about to make. Simon Gregson has been doing this on Coronation Street for a long time, and he has made it look like a man's nature rather than an actor's trick. When we last sat down with the programme it was the thing we laughed at hardest, and it was the particular laugh of recognition: most of us have stood where Steve stands, telling someone with folded arms how it was not quite our fault.
There is not much career to describe beyond the one part, and Gregson would be the first to say so. He was found at his school in Stockport in 1989 by television scouts, cast as one of the McDonald twins opposite his schoolmate Nicholas Cochrane, and first appeared on 6 December 1989, aged fifteen. He has barely been off the street since, through more than 3,600 episodes. The character arrived as a rebellious teenager and has settled, over three and a half decades, into a man of repeated marriages and doomed business ventures, which is to say into comedy. Outside the programme there is a cameo as himself in Red Dwarf: Back to Earth (2009) and a run of panel and light-entertainment appearances, and that is about it.
What works is the company. Gregson is a reactor, not a soloist, and he is at his best with someone across the counter who will not let him finish. The cab-office scenes with Sue Cleaver's Eileen Grimshaw are the proof: she asks a plain question and he supplies three answers, each worse than the last. Katherine Kelly's Becky McDonald gave him a partner who gave as good as she got, and he is sharper for having to keep up. The programme has handed him its lighter stories, and the lighter stories are where Coronation Street has always been strongest. When the catastrophes come round to Steve, as they do, he is less at home in them; the defeated shrug is built into the body by now, and it undercuts the big speech.
That is not quite a criticism. Gregson has never pretended to be anything else. "I joined Coronation Street by accident," he said in 2025, and he has described the job as a wage rather than a calling, which is a franker account of soap acting than most of his colleagues would give.
Whether a man who has done one thing for thirty-six years counts as a good actor is a question we are not sure matters. He has kept one character funny on a schedule that turns out drama by the yard, and that is harder than it looks. We would not expect to find him anywhere else, and we do not think he would want to be found. If you have never watched, pick a cab-office scene and wait for him to start explaining.
Biography
Simon Gregson is a British actor. He was born Simon Alan Gregory on 2 October 1974 in Wythenshawe, Manchester.
While a pupil at The Kingsway School in Stockport, he was cast in 1989 as Steve McDonald, one of the McDonald twins, in the ITV soap opera Coronation Street. He made his first appearance on 6 December 1989 and has remained a regular cast member. He was initially credited under his birth name but adopted the stage name Gregson on joining Equity.
Gregson is best known for his long-running portrayal of Steve McDonald. He has also appeared as himself in Red Dwarf (2009) and other television programmes. He has received multiple awards for his comedy and performance work.
