Gareth Pierce led Coronation Street to the biggest prize at the Inside Soap Awards 2026, with the show taking Best Soap for the third year in a row. The viewer-voted result turned a long-running abuse storyline into the night’s clearest competitive edge, with Sarah Ellis saying the material “really stuck a chord with the audience.”
Pierce won Best Actor for his performances in Coronation Street’s domestic violence storyline, while Theo Silverton’s abuse of Todd won Best Storyline and James Cartwright took Best Villain for playing Theo Silverton. That cluster of wins shows how one plotline carried both the acting and writing categories, a cleaner sweep than a broad spread of one-off trophies.
Gareth Pierce and the Corrie sweep
Vicky Myers also won Best Actress for playing Lisa Connor-Swain, and Alison King and Vicky Myers collected Best Partnership for Lisa and Carla Connor-Swain, known as Swarla. Sarah Ellis added that “the love for power couple Lisa and Carla Connor-Swain – aka Swarla – remains as strong as ever, making it a truly memorable year for our Best Soap winners Corrie.”
Jude Riordan won Best Young Performer for playing Sam Blakeman, and Daniel Brocklebank took Best Exit after Billy Mayhew’s death in the Corriedale crossover episode. Coronation Street and Emmerdale also shared Best Showstopper for the Corriedale road disaster, which gave the night a second major win tied to the crossover rather than a single soap-specific beat.
Emmerdale, Hall of Fame, Diane Parish
Chris Coghill gave Emmerdale two individual wins, landing Best Newcomer and Best Comedy Performance for playing Kev Barton in Emmerdale, while the soap’s Dingle clan won Best Family for the seventh time. Claire King also became the first inductee into Inside Soap’s new Hall of Fame, adding another marker for Emmerdale even as Coronation Street dominated the headline categories.
Diane Parish took the Soap Superstar gong for her work on Denise Fox’s leukaemia storyline, giving the awards one of their most direct recognitions of an ongoing illness plot. That result matters because the viewer vote rewarded not just popularity, but sustained performance across a difficult story arc.
Although Coronation Street dominated the awards, Emmerdale still won Best Newcomer, Best Comedy Performance, Best Family, and a Hall of Fame honor. How many total awards each soap won at the Inside Soap Awards 2026 is not stated, but the spread makes one point plain: viewers gave the strongest backing to storylines and performances that had already held up across multiple categories, not just one-off moments.
