Coronation Street star Tina O'Brien appeared make-up-free as she shared a backstage snap from her second job away from the soap. Fans best know the actress for playing Sarah Barlow in the ITV soap and her character is currently the centre of the action on-screen after her affair was exposed.
But not only that, Sarah has just found out she is pregnant after sleeping with Damon Hay behind her husband Adam Barlow's back. She told her stunned other half the news but didn't get the best reception as the solicitor wanted to know if it was his or Damon's.
While there is still plenty more still to unfold on-screen, Tina isn't only busy portraying Sarah on the cobbles as she has another important job away from the long-running show.
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Away from Weatherfield, Tina owns drama school, The Drama MOB, which this weekend will be celebrating its 10th birthday after introducing a new generation of talent to the soap.
Tina, 39, who has played feisty Sarah Barlow nee Platt in Corrie since 1999, launched The Drama Mob in 2013 with her best friend Esther Morgan, 40, after the star couldn’t find a suitable acting class for her daughter Scarlett, who was then aged three.
Since then the drama school has grown from strength to strength and Tina, who has been working in TV and theatre since she was 10, regularly teaches in the classes and offers one-to-one guidance. And fellow director Esther, a former primary school teacher specialising in drama, manages The Drama MOB casting agency.
The drama school is set to mark its special anniversary with a production of Roald Dahl’s Matilda The Musical Jr, the enchanting story of an extraordinary girl armed with a vivid imagination who dares to make a stand and take control of her own destiny.
Taking to the stage at The Waterside in Sale as Mr Wormwood is Harry Connor, who played Aaron Lewis in the Channel 4 sitcom Everyone Else Burns alongside former Corrie star Amy James-Kelly earlier this year. And Maisey Robinson, who was recently announced as a new cast member on the upcoming 13th series of the Greater Manchester-based BBC One school drama Waterloo Road as pupil Portia Weever, plays Mrs Wormwood in the production.
And over the weekend, Tina, who also played pupil Bex Fisher in Waterloo Road herself back in 2010, took to Instagram to show she was hard at work preparing for the upcoming production.
Taking to her Instagram Story, the soap star shared a fresh-faced selfie looking more than ready for business with a Britney-esque headphone and microphone headset. "Backstage baby," she captioned the snap as she sported her The Drama Mob branded black sweatshirt.
Speaking about how the drama school started, Tina recently said: "It started out when I was looking out for a place for Scarlett. There were a lot of big places but they were all franchises. Between us with our experience we thought ‘we could do that'."
The agency, which launched two years later in 2015 following the success of the classes, represents young actors with roles in Coronation Street and Hollyoaks and their talent has worked with big brands including Waitrose, Tesco and John Lewis.
In 2018 four-year-old Freddie Henderson became an instant star playing the youngest version of music legend Sir Elton John in the eagerly-anticipated John Lewis Christmas ad The Boy and the Piano, which charted the hitmaker’s musical journey after being gifted a piano for Christmas.
He was chosen from thousands of children, with Sir Elton himself giving him the seal of approval because of his likeness to himself as a child. Meanwhile, Sebastien Tensel and Jake Ademola star in the children's TV series The World According to Grandpa and Maizie Wickson stars in the BBC 2 sitcom Alma's Not Normal.
Other The Drama MOB talent have appeared in the feature film The Railway Children Return and the 2022 Amazon rom-com Your Christmas Or Mine. Twin brothers Freddie and Isaac Rhodes also play Tina’s on-screen son Harry Platt in Corrie and The Drama MOB provided triplets and twins to play Chesney Brown and Gemma Winter’s quadruplets Aled, Bryn, Carys and Llio.
