Jennie Mcalpine
As Fiz and Tyrone suffer more grief, Jennie Mcalpine (Fiz) praises real parents everywhere – while indulging our theories about Hope’s suspect teaching assistant…
“Fiz just wants everything to be nice!”
The big questions being asked by Corrie viewers currently are: Who is Jade? And what does she want with Fiz and Tyrone? Now, we savvy Street fans have been around the Weatherfield block enough times to know when there is a fox in someone’s hen house, and many of you have gone so far as to guess Jade’s true identity, as young Hope’s teaching assistant stirs up trouble at No 9.
So, when Inside Soap catches up with actress Jennie Mcalpine (who plays
Fiz) we put your predictions to her – and, although the actress is staying tight-lipped on what Jade’s game is, she is enjoying the speculation…
“People keep coming up to me in the street and saying,
‘You’ve got to watch that
Jade – she’s after your
Tyrone!’” laughs 35-year-old Jennie. “If Fiz saw Jade muscling in, I’m not sure that she would be too happy. Tyrone does have form, though. Every time
Fiz goes away, he tends to sleep with somebody! I suppose it has only been Gemma, to be fair, but I’m going to bring that up again anyway!” We giggle with Jennie as she quite rightly refuses to let Tyrone off the hook for his past infidelity – yet on the flip side, it has been lovely to see him and Fiz enjoying a bit of normality again recently, even if there is something fishy about Jade. “Fiz just wants everything to be nice – Christmas is coming up, after all,” points out Jennie. “She’d like to to be an ordinary mum with nothing horrible happening, and they’ve all been through a lot, so Fiz doesn’t want any more of that. All she needs is two kids that go to school, argue a bit, then she shouts at them and it’s all normal and nice.
She’s even learning to love
Evelyn… ish!”
Tyrone’s granny and her acid tongue is certainly the gift that keeps on giving, thanks to such a polished performance from esteemed actress Maureen Lipman, who joined Corrie to play the role last year. Viewers are champing at the bit for
Evelyn to suss out Jade and give her what-for – but with Fiz completely oblivious to the traitor in her midst, that’s proving tricky.
“Evelyn does not like Jade at all and wants her gone, like yesterday!” chuckles Jennie. “But Fiz just sees this amazing girl who her daughter responds to. Hope is much better behaved when she is around Jade, and that’s all Fiz wants.”
To Fiz’s horror, though, Hope is worlds away from a reformed little rascal. This week, the naughty youngster starts another fire in her own backyard, prompting Fiz to break down and finally confess to Tyrone that she
Fiz feels useless – Jade controls Hope in a way that she can’t!
suspects Hope of lighting the blaze at the factory a few months ago.
“Fiz has been keeping her suspicions a secret, as she thought that she could handle it, especially now that Jade is there to help with Hope,” explains Jennie. “She has also been worried about how it will affect her relationship with Tyrone, and he’s not best pleased that she has been keeping it to herself.” Happily, the couple make amends. However, Jade hopes to throw a spanner in the works after slyly expressing her concerns about Fiz’s parenting skills to Evelyn, as Hope’s mum loses her temper after finding a lighter stashed inside her daughter’s dolly. But when news reaches the clan that Hope can return to school, Ty and Fiz accept they no longer have a use for Jade. “Fiz agrees that, when Hope goes back to school, there is no real reason for Jade to be in the house – although she is worried that Hope will go back to the way she was,” confesses Jennie. “Fiz knows that letting Jade go is the right thing to do, but she is secretly thinking, ‘Is Hope going to behave herself when Jade isn’t here?’ It actually makes Fiz feel like a totally useless mother, as Jade can control Hope in a way that she can’t.”
Whether this is the last we’ll see or hear of Jade remains to be seen, with Jennie going as far as to hint that while Fiz hopes everything is going to be okay, she’s not sure it will be… Meanwhile, the actress is properly back in the swing of things having returned to work following the birth of her second child, Hilda. And with four-year-old Albert having just started school, Jennie admits that being a working mum is proving to be a real balancing act.
“I had nine months at home with Hilda, and then I was back at work – it went so fast,” she said in a recent interview. “Being a parent is flipping hard work, and the juggling is crazy. Me and Chris [Farr, Jennie’s husband whom she married in 2017] have a meeting every Sunday night to coordinate the coming week, and we have a family timetable stuck on our fridge!
“Every now and then I smile at other mums and dads, as sometimes you need a lift,” she continued. “Just someone to say, ‘You’re doing a brilliant job’.”
Prior to falling pregnant with Hilda,
Jennie was the Street’s very own Jane Of The Jungle in 2017 when she took part in I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! – finishing in fourth place. The star has also appeared on Loose Women as a guest panellist, and just this year she provided the voiceover for the all-new series of Supermarket Sweep. However, home is where the heart is as far as Jennie’s work on Corrie goes – and despite the drama unfolding for
Fiz and Tyrone’s family on screen, they are all a happy bunch really.
“Sometimes we spend more time with our pretend family than we do our own families,” laughs Jennie. “When it’s full-on, going on to the Dobbs set is like walking into your own house.
“It’s called the Dobbs set even though not many of us are called Dobbs,” she continues. “Fiz is still a Stape – and so is Hope – but Evelyn is not a Dobbs. We’ll have to rectify that!”