She’s worked with everyone from Dustin Hoffman to Christian Slater, but it was Corrie’s Rita who“gobsmacked” RSC actress Frances Barber into starstruck silence. Joining Coronation Street later this month as Celeste – the ebullient estranged aunt of Bernie Winter-Alahan (Jane Hazlegrove) – will be the highlight of her career.
She says: “The truth is that I’ve wanted to walk the cobbles for 40 years. It was on my bucket list. I’m a complete and utter fanatic. I grew up on it. I’m from a council estate in Wolverhampton, one of six kids. I know Wolverhampton isn’t Weatherfield, but it’s not that dissimilar.
“I used to be a Saturday girl in Marks & Spencer and the shoppers were like all the women on Corrie – strong, blunt, down-to-earth and very funny. I’ve loved them and respected them all my life, so it was always a dream. I thought ‘one day I will walk the cobbles.’ And I did, so I’m over the moon about it. It’s absolutely one of my career highlights.”
During her 47-year-career, Frances, 68, has worked with the prestigious Royal Shakespeare Company and performed at the National Theatre. But when she encountered Barbara Knox, who plays Rita Tanner, on the Corrie set, she says: “I was very, very nervous.
“I passed Barbara Knox and my heart skipped a beat. I was literally gobsmacked. I didn’t speak to her, I don’t think anything would have come out of my mouth actually, because I grew up watching her. I didn’t get to see Bill Roache [Ken Barlow], but I’ve taken pictures of all their dressing rooms. And I’ve got a picture of me pretending to pull a pint in the Rovers Return that I’ve sent to everybody I know.
“I’ve driven all of my friends mad – ‘here’s a picture of me outside the Rovers, here’s a picture of me outside Roy’s Rolls.’ They all went, ‘enough!’ But you can’t imagine how excited I was, I really am a fan girl!”
Celeste arrives on the cobbles on August 19, looking for her niece, Bernie. Discovering she’s away, she visits the undertakers and starts organising a Dolly Parton-themed funeral for a ‘friend’. Eventually, she tells Todd Grimshaw (Gareth Pierce) that the funeral is actually her own, as she has cancer and has only six weeks to live.
Frances says: “She reminds me completely of the women that I adored and grew up with, such as Elsie Tanner. She’s straightforward, witty and clever and says it as it is. She’s a Dolly Parton fan, so she’s dressed head to foot in cow print and cowboy outfits. She even sings a bit of Dolly Parton at one point. She’s wonderful. It was the gift of a part for any actress my age and I relished it.”
But there’s no hero’s welcome from Bernie, because of a family fall-out involving Celeste and her twin-sister – Bernie’s mum. Luckily, the Corrie cast was the opposite.
She says: “The cast were so warm. When you’re a visiting artist, you’re in a hotel on your own, but they took me out to Pizza Express – Tony Maudsley (George Shuttleworth) Jane Hazlegrove, Amy Robbins (Christina) and Gareth. They really couldn’t have been nicer to me. It was lovely.”
Starting out in theatre, aged 26, Frances joined the Royal Shakespeare Company – receiving Olivier award nominations for her stage roles in Camille and Uncle Vanya.
Her film career has included Mike Leigh’s Home Sweet Home with Timothy Spall and 1987’s Prick Up Your Ears with Gary Oldman and Julie Walters. Meanwhile, her TV credits include Whitstable Pearl, Doctor Who, Benidorm, Friday Night Dinner and Cold Feet.
Other career highlights include filming in Italy with Dustin Hoffman for the Netflix series Medici and appearing in London’s West End in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest with Christian Slater.
She says: “Dustin and Christian are two of the humblest, most professional people you could ever work with. Dustin kept saying, ‘was I ok? Was that ok?’ I was like ‘you’re asking me?’ But they don’t take their stardom seriously.”
Enjoying a phenomenal career, Frances admits there have been lows as well as highs. Camille went to America, but they gave her role to Hollywood icon Kathleen Turner. She says: “I was really heartbroken about that, but that’s showbiz.”
Ten years ago, she was offered a job in America and moved to Hollywood, where she shed two stone after feeling under pressure to lose weight to get parts. She says: “I’m glad I went and got it out of my system and I’m very glad I went when I was older.
“I think it’s very tricky for young actresses. I felt that pressure, even at my age and I lost loads of weight – I’ve put it all back on again unfortunately! Everyone goes to the gym all the time, so I was going to the gym, to Pilates, I was swimming. When I got back home everybody went ‘oh my God, you’ve disappeared!’”
It was a visit from her good friend Sir Ian McKellen that made her realise it was time to return to Britain. She says: “He came over because he had a film out and I went to the premiere with him. He said ‘you’ve done it, you haven’t failed, you’ve worked and now it’s time to come home because we all miss you.’ I burst into tears. I was homesick.”
Firm friends since the 1980s, Ian came to her rescue after a catastrophic accident in 2007, when Frances was knocked off her bike into the path of an oncoming lorry. She says: “We were doing King Lear in Stratford and we were about to embark on a world tour. I bought a bike – the worst idea I’ve ever had – and one day, going to rehearsals, I had this terrible accident.
“I fell and I saw the whites of the eyes of the driver. I’m lucky to be alive. I broke my cruciate ligament and needed an operation and I just couldn’t walk. I was in a wheelchair and Ian took me in. He helped me get up and down the stairs and into and out of the bath – he was great.”
Six years later, Frances was in the wars again, this time after falling off a horse filming the Sky sitcom The Spa. “I had to dismount and I fell and landed on my knee. I ended up in a wheelchair again.”
Frances, who has had long-term relationships with director Danny Boyle and actor Neil Pearson, lives in Clerkenwell, central London, and is in a relationship again. She says: “He kind of lives with me, that’s all I’ll say. He’s not in the same business.”
Once she finishes in Weatherfield, Frances is off to Belgium to begin filming the new series of the crime drama Bookish. But she’s been sharing her Corrie tales with Sir Ian, who had a stint on the cobbles in 2005, playing conman author Mel Hutchwright.
Frances says: “He’s in New Zealand doing Gandalf again. He’s very excited I’ve got this job and he’s made me promise that I’ll tell him when it’s on, so he can stream it in Wellington; he loves Corrie as much as me.”
*Frances makes her Coronation Street debut on August 19. Coronation Street airs weekdays on ITV at 8:30 PM and ITVX at 7 AM
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