Coronation Street star Dame Maureen Lipman has spoken about the challenges she’s faced on the ITV soap.

The legendary actress, 78, has appeared as harridan Evelyn Plummer in the long-running serial drama since 2018, but since January has only appeared in a recurring capacity.

Her exit story saw her depart for a university law course, prompted by best pal Roy Cropper (David Neilson).

Maureen revealed that the reason behind her contract change was in order to ‘have a bit of a life.’

She last appeared on screen in March after learning that daughter Cassie (Claire Sweeney) had been cast out by the locals after being caught out for drugging and stealing from Ken Barlow (William Roache).

Now, speaking on the 20 Questions podcast, Maureen has addressed the fast-paced environment working on Corrie, plus her distaste at the show’s direction and scripts.

‘One of the problems of being in a soap, for example, is because you’re doing eight or 10 scenes a day, you read it, you move it, and then you film it,’ she said.

‘Boom, boom, thank you, and have another crack at it if something has gone wrong, but on the whole that’s it. It’s almost like radio, but there’s cameras there.’

She continued: ‘You can’t do anything. People are just talking heads. They’re standing there going, “Don’t you talk to me like that…” if it’s EastEnders. Or, “I’ll have a word with you…’ if it’s Coronation Street.”

‘Nobody is picking their nose or scrubbing the sink down while they’re talking, or making three Martinis. It’s all just heads talking.

‘That’s not what life is like. You’re in a bedroom somewhere and you’re talking to me, you’re listening, you’re making notes … I’m picking up my phone…

‘It’s very complicated a human life, you never just do one thing.’

She also noted that on her first day on set, show icon Barbara Knox told her that there’s ‘no time to do anything’. Maureen went on to comment about receiving very little direction in scenes.

‘As far as directors are concerned it’s a curious egg. I would love to work with somebody who knows more than I do about what you do on stage,’ she added.

‘That happens, but not always. Particularly in television, certainly on something like Corrie, you hardly get any direction at all.’

Speaking about her late husband Jack Rosenthal, who penned 130 scripts between 1961 and 1969, she continued: ‘You can only be as good as your writer.’

‘So often you are making things work on television particularly. Slightly altering the words.

‘Think about Coronation Street, which I love doing and I’m very fond of it, and I love the fact I can pop in and out.

‘But every episode is a different writer so you basically never get, what you used to get when Jack wrote it, you would write a block of six, so the same voice, the same rhythms and you didn’t have to worry about whether the words suited your character, it was there, it was a single voice