Coronation Street’s Dame Maureen Lipman has opened up about her future on the cobbles as she takes a break from the ITV soap.
Coronation Street star Maureen, 76, is returning to the title role of Rose in a live stage production of the one-woman play on the West End, which follows a formidable Jewish woman’s journey from Nazi-ruled Europe.
During an appearance on Good Morning Britain, the soap star said she’s still very much looking forward to returning to the cobbles.
Sitting in the ITV studio alongside presenters Rob Rinder and Charlotte Hawkins, she said: “This has just come at a time where I’ve got a little holiday from Corrie – I’m going back, because I like Corrie, I like the people.”
She continued: “It’s amazing being up north again because you realise how much you’re kind of being posh when you’re in London, even though I’ve been here 54 years.”
Rob replied: “You've got a proper personal history with Hull and with Manchester as well, and through your late husband, who wrote so many episodes of Corrie as well.”
The dame was born in Hull, while Coronation Street is filmed in Salford, Manchester.
Referring to her late husband Jack Rosenthal, who wrote over a hundred episodes of Corrie, she replied: “He did and Evelyn is a very Jack Rosenthal character. She’s a proper battle-axe. She’s not really redeemed.”
Earlier this summer, it was announced that the actress had penned a deal to stay on the ITV programme for another year, having first introduced her character Evelyn Plummer in 2018.
She said at the time that she “wouldn’t hear a word against” the soap, saying: “It’s full of quite exceptional actors working with very little rehearsal, very little direction.”
Dame Maureen and Jack married in 1974 until his death at the age of 72 and shared two children together, Amy Rosenthal and Adam Rosenthal.
She returned to Corrie in 2021 after a break following the death of her partner Guido Castro, who she was in a relationship with from 2008.
She then took some time away from the soap during the pandemic until she had received the Covid-19 vaccine.
Dame Maureen has not only played her mainstay character Evelyn on the ITV soap, as she previously portrayed a character called Lillian Spencer for six episodes in 2002, who was employed by Fred Elliott (John Savident) to run The Rovers Return Inn.
Then 16 years later, Dame Maureen returned as Evelyn, the long-lost grandmother of Tyrone Dobbs (Alan Halsall).
