One Coronation Street legend has confirmed she’s taking an extended break from the ITV soap – and won’t be back until next year.
Dame Maureen Lipman, best known for playing Evelyn Plummer on the cobbles, is stepping away from her role towards the end of 2024 and won’t be back until 2025. She’ll be starring instead in Richmond Theatre’s pantomime, Beauty and the Beast, from early December until January.
A spokesperson for Corrie confirmed that Maureen will be taking a “sabbatical” from the soap, explaining: “Dame Maureen is taking a sabbatical from Coronation Street towards the end of the year. We look forward to seeing her back on the cobbles in 2025.”
Maureen joked: “They asked me to do panto and I said ‘Oh no I can’t’… They said ‘OH YES YOU CAN!’”
The 77-year-old will star alongside comedian Pete Firman in the new role, which comes just months after Maureen took a brutal swipe at Corrie’s current storylines. She said on the Beyond the Title podcast: “We’ve come to a point in Corrie now where people are getting murdered in knicker factories.
“We’re having domestic abuse. Anything that ticks the box of social problems in the 21st century is going to be in your local soap. Whereas back then you had the freedom to put Martha [Longhurst], Minnie [Caldwell] and Ena [Sharples] in the snug and have a conversation about Ben-Hur.
“It’s never been political but I always like it when the women sit down and go, ‘Ooh, Donald Trump, ain’t his hair shocking.’ All those wonderful expressions that your parents come out with, like my mother saying, ‘Ooh, doesn’t a black skirt cover a multitude of sins.’ People talk like that, and we recognise it as true.”
The cobbles have already been plagued with exits temporary and permanent this year, but there’s sadly more to come, as Peter Ash is set to depart his role as Paul Foreman for good. Paul is set to lose his battle with motor neurone disease in tragic scenes this summer.
In November 2023, a nurse indicated Paul had just six months to a year to live, and despite his condition deteriorating rapidly, he’s now made it to the seven month mark. He’s unable to eat and relies on a feeding tube, and a fall from his stairlift meant Paul is essentially confined to the flat.
In 2023, Paul celebrated his “last Christmas” with his family, and his exit date is thought to be before autumn comes for 2024.
