Brenda Blethed with good looks

Brenda Blethyn says the public are always surprised at how different she looks in real life, compared to her dowdy Vera character in the hit ITV detective series.

“People are always coming up to me and cooing, ‘Ooh, aren’t you pretty?’” the 71-year-old star told an audience at the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival.

“I always tell them. ‘You should have gone to Specsavers’.”