Claire Sweeney is joining Coronation Street.
It'll be the meeting of two soap legends when the former Brookside star takes up her newly announced role on the cobbles as Tyrone Dobbs' mum.
Claire will start shooting scenes next week, according to Liverpool Echo, and her on-screen debut will be broadcast on ITV on June 28.
Claire says she's thrilled by the new job - which she says is better than a Hollywood movie gig.
Claire, 52, said: "Even though I’ve been lucky enough to have enjoyed an amazingly varied career for nearly 40 years - being cast in Coronation Street is, to me, better than being cast in a Hollywood movie!
"I’ve watched it all my life and can’t quite believe that I’ll now be stepping onto those famous cobbles myself. I was really nervous when I got the scripts to audition as this show means so much to me and my family and this is Corrie gold, I was beyond thrilled and very grateful when I got the call that Iain MacLeod is trusting me to play Tyrone's Mum and work alongside one of my heroes, Dame Maureen Lipman.
"Cassie is a character who is definitely going to make an impact - I just hope the audience will enjoy watching her as much as I'm going to be enjoying playing her!”
As Corrie fans will know, mechanic Tyrone, played by Alan Halsall, was brought up to believe that Jackie Dobbs was his mum but in 2018 he met his grandmother Evelyn Plummer, played by Dame Maureen Lipman, who told him her daughter Cassie was actually his real mum, and she'd abandoned him at a police station in 1982 due to a drug habit. Evelyn also told Tyrone that his biological mum was dead.
But soon he'll discover Evelyn wasn't telling the total truth.
Coronation Street Producer Iain MacLeod added: “Claire bowled us over in her audition and the scenes with her, Tyrone and Evelyn will be electric. Her arrival will mark the start of a tumultuous time for Tyrone and the family and her impact will be felt across the street in the weeks and months that follow.”
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