Coronation Street’s Catherine Tyldesley says ‘old school Corrie’ is back as new family shake things up

The Driscoll family arrived on the cobbles with a bang last week

The actress reprised her role as Eva Price after seven years away from the soap(Image: ITV)

Catherine Tyldesley thinks Coronation Street bosses are trying to bring back “old school Corrie”. Earlier this year, it was confirmed the actress would be reprising her role as Eva Price after seven years away from the soap. Catherine’s final scenes aired in August 2018 but the 42-year-old is now back on set filming in Weatherfield.

The actress says Coronation Street bosses are keen to satisfy the audience demand for “character led storylines” to be at the heart of the programme. Catherine told the Daily Mail: “What Kate Brooks our wonderful producer has done is bring back an old school Corrie feeling.”

She continued: “She is super passionate about that and she is a big Corrie fan and that was one of the reasons I agreed to come back, was because of her vision for the show and where she wanted to take it.”

She added: “Finding those character led storylines, with strong women at the forefront is something Corrie has always done so well and that the audience seem to crave, and I think Kate is feeding that.

“It’s important to move with the times but also know who your target audience is, everyone kept saying they want that ‘Old school Corrie vibe, we want it be character led’ and I feel the show is nailing that.”

The ECHO recently attended a press event at Coronation Street, which saw Catherine open up on her long-awaited return to the Manchester-based soap.

Eva and Ben are the new owners of the Rovers Return(Image: ITV)

The actress said it felt like the “right time” to return to Corrie, after pursuing other projects, including The Good Ship Murder, during her time away from the cobbles.

She said: “I always wanted to come back because Eva is so much fun to play.” Speaking about getting the call to return to Corrie, she said: “I was in Malta filming and my agent said that Kate [soap producer] would like to speak to me about Corrie. I assumed it was somebody’s funeral and they wanted me to come.”

“But when Kate said ‘Would you like to be landlady’ I screamed. I was just really shocked because it’s an absolute dream of mine. I remember watching the show as a kid and thinking I’d kill to be landlady one day.”

Despite landing the most iconic role on the soap as landlady of the Rovers Return, Cath also felt it was the right time to come back to Coronation Street in her personal life too.

She said: “In my personal life, I’d literally just had a conversation with my husband Tom because I’d been away for nine months at this point.

“I feel truly blessed to have been working and done some really great things in the past few years, but I felt like the universe had combined things at the same time because Tom said to me ‘God I really hope your next job is in Manchester Cath’.”

Talking about reprising her role and working down the road from her home after many years working abroad, she said: “It all came around at the right time on a personal and professional level and it felt right. I’m so thrilled to be back it’s just been gorgeous.”

Coronation Street airs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 8pm on ITV1 and ITVX