He was an icon, a legend.. Jimmy Corkhill! I thought he was invincible
emotional – to think that would be the last time we were all together...”
Claire got the Brookside role on her 20th birthday, and got her Corrie role on her 52nd. The coincidence makes her smile – especially when she thinks of everything she has achieved in the years in between.
She released a top 20 album in 2002, appeared on Strictly in 2004 and worked on the West End stage. She became so famous that Michael Aspel presented her with the Big
Red Book on This is Your Life.
“I’ve been very lucky over the years,” she says. “If TV went quiet, I’ve done a lot of musical theatre, and I’ve also invested in property, which has helped.
“But at 52 to suddenly get Coronation Street and now Dancing on Ice...
“If you told me a year ago I’d be doing these two jobs, I wouldn’t have believed you! I get a bit tired but how brilliant is it!” Claire is especially thrilled to be working with Maureen Lipman, who plays her on-screen mum Evelyn in Corrie. She says: “The other night, I was coming back up to Manchester from training.
“It had been a long day, and we had these heavy scenes, and
I asked Maureen if we could get together and practise – and she invited me to her flat, and she’d done dinner for me. And we went through the scenes and she was amazing.
“I still get nervous doing scenes in the Rovers, though. The other day, my leg was shaking so much, I had to give it a slap under the table.”
Being so busy in her 50s has helped Claire stop worrying about some things, such as ageing.
“I remember before I turned 50 thinking, ‘Oh, it sounds so old!’ I couldn’t even say the words,” she laughs. “I just thought ‘Sod my birthday, I’m not celebrating’ and the next thing I’m sitting on a 50 sign, because you have to embrace it!”
Menopause and getting older have changed her figure. But she has been picking up some tips from the fellow Dancing on Ice contestants.
“I’d love to be 10 stone again but I
would have to starve myself, and I love my food too much,” she confesses. “But I am following what Greg Rutherford is eating and trying to do the same. I have noticed I’m toning up.”
Claire’s son Jaxon has been watching her skate every week.
“He is so proud that I am standing up and staying up!” Claire jokes. “Then the other night we watched the Eddie the Eagle movie. Now he loves him and cheers him on.” Claire is hopeful tomorrow’s show will be a good one for her and partner Colin Grafton.
All eyes will be on them to see how they can top last week’s OTT epic entrance.
She laughs: “We’re working on the oomph. We’ve got to have oomph to triumph, they say!”
All Claire can say about tomorrow’s routine is that there will be no headbangers – in which a skater is picked up by the ankle and spun around. She adds: “But I never say never! I am getting braver every day.”
Between learning her Corrie lines and her skating routines, her head must be spinning already.
Dancing on Ice, tomorrow, ITV, 6.20pm. Coronation Street, ITV, Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, 8pm.