Coronation Street’s Bet Lynch has been voted the most iconic female soap character in history.
The no-nonsense ‘Corrie’ landlady – who has been played by Julie Goodyear on the ITV soap on and off from 1966 to 2003 – has beaten off competition from the likes of EastEnders’ Peggy Mitchell (Dame Barbara Windsor) in a new poll carried out on behalf of UK sofa and carpet specialist ScS.
EastEnders’ Dot Branning – who is still played by June Brown in the BBC One soap – was voted into third in the poll, and the late Deirdre Barlow (Anne Kirkbride) was fourth.
While Bet beat Peggy in the overall poll, which was carried out by 2,000 adults, the former Queen Vic landlady was voted top of the charts by those under 35 years old, compared to people over 35 picking ex-Rovers Return landlady Bet as their number one soap icon.
Vicki Burns, communications executive at ScS, said: "We know people love their soaps and over the years we have been treated to many iconic sofa moments in soap land.
"Our poll has voted stars of ‘Coronation Street’ and ‘EastEnders’ as the most iconic and memorable in terms of style, which we have turned into would-be sofa designs inspired by their character.
"Here at ScS, we are all big fans of watching soaps on the sofa and we wanted to celebrate some of our favourite female characters.
"We hope people enjoy our take on how the sofas of these characters could look and we’d encourage everyone to get involved and vote for their favourite on Facebook."
Peggy’s ‘EastEnders’ pal Pat Butcher (Pam St. Clement) was also highly commended in the poll, as was Corrie’s Rita Sullivan – still portrayed by Barbara Knox – and Emmerdale’s Lisa Dingle (Jane Cox), who was the only character from a soap other than ‘Corrie’ and ‘EastEnders’ to make the list.
Coronation Street’s Bet Lynch voted most iconic female soap character
