‘I’ve had 10 affairs – I wasn’t that sort of woman when I arrived on Corrie!’ Britain’s longest serving soap stars tell all

‘I thought I was going to work in a factory’ … Sally Dynevor, who plays Sally Metcalfe in Coronation Street, on set. Composite: Richard Saker/The Guardian; ITV/Shutterstock

What does it do to an actor to play the same role for most of their life? Do soap stars dream of binning off Albert Square, the Cobbles, Home Farm or the Woolpack? And do they have nightmares about being written out in a helicopter crash or crushed by a Blackpool tram? I spoke to four of Britain’s leading soap actors to find out.

Charles Collingwood – Brian Aldridge in The Archers since 25 March 1975