Maureen Lipman has revealed Coronation Street’s older stars will return to work in September.
The 74-year-old actress – who plays Evelyn Plummer on the ITV soap – isn’t rejoining her younger cast mates on the cobbles just yet, after production got back underway earlier this month amid the coronavirus pandemic, but she has a timeframe for her comeback.
Speaking to Lorraine Kelly on ‘Good Morning Britain’, she said: "There is an element now of people, particularly in my business … you used to be able to waitress when you weren’t working but now there’s nowhere to waitress.
"So it is tough. I’m very aware that I’m incredibly lucky to have ‘Coronation Street’ to look forward to in September when the wrinklies get unrolled."
‘Corrie’ resumed filming this month after a three-month break due to the UK’s lockdown restrictions.
Executive producer Iain MacLeod recently opened up about a number of plans to work around issues preventing some of the older actors – including the likes of Bill Roache (Ken Barlow) and Sue Nicholls (Audrey Roberts) – from returning to set.
He said: "In some cases we’ll be telling a story that accounts for them being off screen for the time being but in other cases we’ll imagine that they’re just upstairs unseen.
"So it’s not like we’ll have to explain that they’ve gone away somewhere. It’s purely that they’re self-isolating. It has provided us with some opportunities to do some interesting stories as well.
"We have considered having some of the older cast, vulnerable cast, on Zoom calls or Skype calls or Facetiming and other ways of storytelling that incorporate that as a device."
Iain explained how bosses are keen to "keep sight" of certain actors and their characters, even if they can’t physically be on the cobbles set due to certain health and safety restrictions.
He added: "In some cases they physically can’t be in the building.
"But I still think we want to keep sight of them and I know the audience will thank us for keeping them in sight. They’re very well loved, they’re fantastic characters and performers.
"So we are trying to take advantage of the post-pandemic world and some elements of that that have become fairly normal for a lot of us."