VIDEO: Watch These Unrecognisable Coronation Street Stars Talk About Their Grim New Roles

They say the mark of a top thespian is to be chameleon-like and transform themselves completely.

Two of Coronation Street’s most recognizable stars have done just that.

You would probably have never guessed their identities just from the following image.

Or this one…

As our video showed, it’s David Neilson and Chris Goscoyne – appearing together in a new production of existential miserabilist Samuel Beckett’s play Endgame.

David, 66 – famed as Roy Cropper on the cobbles who married Hayley Patterson, the first transgender character in a British soap – plays Hamm in the apocalyptic drama.

David as Roy with transgender character Hayley in Corrie

He took the Beckett part after he confirmed in November he’d be taking a three-month break from Corrie to try his hand at theatre.

His former Corrie co-star Chris, 48 – who played bigamist Peter Barlow in the ITV show – takes the part of Clov in the Beckett play.

Chris with Bill Roache in Corrie

Chris hasn’t appeared on Coronation Street since he made a brief appearance in July for the funeral scenes of Deirdre Barlow, played by Anne Kirkbride.

Roles in Corrie characterised by odd sexual storylines should make appearing in Beckett a doddle for any actor.

David endures a constant nosebleed in the play and Chris has shaved his head to play Clov.

Endgame, which premiered in 1957, tells of tyrant Hamm and his dutiful companion Clov who are irrevocably bound together in a single, filthy room, caught in a pointless loop of futile routines.

The play paints such a suicidally bleak vision of life’s meaninglessness it’s been said to make Beckett’s angsty Waiting For Godot look like high farce.

Hamm and Clov’s endless, brutal verbal exchanges in Endgame are broken only by the nostalgic reminiscing of Hamm’s parents Nagg and Nell who are reduced to living in rubbish bins.

One critic wrote about David’s part in Endgame he is the ‘old actor demanding respect where none is deserved’ due to his soap past.

However, they admit that he pulls off the part – though they recommend he includes ‘more tonal variation’ in his speech.

Endgame, now at The Citizens Theatre in Glasgow, ends its run on March 12 in Manchester.