Coronation Street legend Thelma Barlow explains why she will never return to the soap
Thelma Barlow has admitted that she "couldn't" ever return to 'Coronation Street', almost 30 years after she left he role as Mavis Riley
Thelma Barlow "couldn't" be in 'Coronation Street' now.
The 95-year-old actress played Mavis Riley on ITV's flagship soap opera from 1971 until 1997, and following the recent exit of Helen Worth - who played matriarch Gail Platt for 50 years - she admitted that she knew it was the "right thing" for her to quit when she did.
Speaking on the 'Conversation Street' podcast, she said: "It was the right thing for me. Helen's just left, and it's probably the right thing for her too. You just know, I think. I couldn't be doing it now.
"But, no, I just felt that I just had to get back to theatre and that happened, fortunately."
During her time on the cobbles, Mavis famously married Derek Wilton (Peter Baldwin) and formed a double act with fellow Street legend Rita Tanner (Barbara Knox) as they ran The Kabin newsagents together.
Asked what it made her on-screen friendship with Rita such a success, she said: "Well, they were such opposites to begin with, weren't they? Everyone caved in rather heavily on Mavis to begin with, but it gradually rubbed off on her, this little bit of spirit and she got more strength.
"They were really good friends, although there was a lot of stick coming from Rita! I think [Mavis] probably irritated Rita, 'Get some spine, woman, stand up for yourself!', because she was being very soppy with all these menfolk. She had so many men in her life over the years, it never came to anything, though."
Meanwhile, the former 'dinnerladies' star has come out of retirement to appear in the short film 'Sleepless in Settle' - in which she plays an elderly mother who schemes to set her 72-year-old son up with the right woman - but admitted that she had "no intention" of acting again until a friend approached her about the project.
She said: "I had no intention of working again, but a friend who had written a lot of things, she's an actress, and a very good one, Judy Flynn, she asked if she could write something for me.
"I was delighted, I don't think I hesitated at all. She wrote this lovely piece, and we talked about it quite a lot. We were very much on a wavelength, and we did it about a year and a half ago now.
"It was just the best thing ever because I started off in theatre, and it was like being back in my first job with young people. Young technicians, everyone had this great feeling of trying to do the best they could."
