It was dubbed by fans as the "clash of the drama titans" as the Happy Valley finale on BBC One went head-to-head with Vera on ITV1 on Sunday night (February 5). As DCI Vera Stanhope, played by Brenda Blethyn, cracked another difficult case in the North East, Yorkshire crime fighter Sergeant Catherine Cawood, played by Sarah Lancashire, was having the ultimate retirement day.
In Vera, which launched in 2011 and is now in its 12th series, Vera attended to the body of soldier Conn Burns who had ended up living on the streets after leaving the Army, finding that secrets from his past and betrayal in the present made for a deadly future. Victoria Ekanoye, who played Angie Appleton the wife of conman Jude Appleton in Coronation Street, was back on our screens in Vera as Liv Masters, the head of a security firm the new partner of Conn's wife Kate.
There was a shock in store for viewers, including Victoria's nearest and dearest, as her supportive character turned out to be a ruthless killer who had strangled Conn with his own scarf after she found him after he had been attacked near the nightclub where she was working. It was a far cry from her soap role as doting mum Angie from 2017 to 2019.
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Victoria, 41, says she enjoyed playing steely Liv and it would be her ultimate dream to be a Bond villain and to play a movie supervillain in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. "I loved her," she said. "Afterwards my mum FaceTimed me to say 'I'm so proud of you.' The only other time I played an ominous character was in Death In Paradise in January last year. I love playing a villan."
Before Corrie she was known in the US for her role as Rachel the dominatrix secretary to the Queen in the primetime television drama The Royals alongside Elizabeth Hurley. Victoria, was born in Bury and raised in Stockport and Rochdale.
She moved to London at 18 to pursue her love of acting which landed her a role on stage in the West End musical The Lion King. It was a lifetime ambition to star in Coronation Street after acting out pretend soap scenes as a child growing up in Greater Manchester, and she's proud to be part of the Corrie family along with Happy Valley star Sarah, who shot to fame as Weatherfield icon Raquel Wolstenholme.
"It really is a rite of passage," she said about Coronation Street. And she added: "Sarah is a goddess. Her micro expressions are incredible. I love that she was part of the Corrie family."
Victoria's former co-star Mollie Winnard, who played Kayla Clifton in the soap in 2018, also starred in Happy Valley in the third and last series series as abused wife Joanna Hepworth. Victoria previously cheered her on with the message: "I LOVE ME SOME MOLLIE," with a stream of applause emojis as the actress shared a snap of herself as Joanna.
She has so far managed to avoid spoilers about the horrors in Calder Valley while tuning in to Vera. "I need to catch up," said Victoria who noticed that some viewers were switching between the two hour-long episode of Vera, which started at 8pm and Happy Valley which started at 9pm. She was watching Vera with her partner Jonny Lomas. "There was moment he worked out I was the killer and he turned to me and said 'you cheeky devil, it's you.," she said.
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