CANAL TO COBBLES

WHEN Corrie’s Nicola Thorp is at home reading her lines, one thing’s for sure. There’s a star-aboard. And a port side too. Because the actress, who plays feisty Nicola Rubinstein on the cobbles, lives on a canal boat.

While most soap stars would plump for a comfy mansion, Nicola, 29, loves messing about on water – and the hardship it entails.

“People ask me if it’s glamorous being in Coronation Street,” she laughs. “I’m like, ‘sweetheart, I have to empty my toilet tank once a week’. It can be the most stressful lifestyle. Something breaks and I’ve spent hours stuck in the engine room watching YouTube tutorials, not knowing what I was doing.

“But it’s taught me loads about my resilience and dealing with stuff.” Nicola, who joined Corrie last summer as soap baddie Pat Phelan’s daughter, also cruises around constantly to new moorings, but her quirky home has proved a hit with co- stars. “The older ones are fascinated by it,” she says. “I t alk t o David Neilson (Roy Cropper) and Mike Le Vell (Kevin Webster) about it all the time. A few are going to have a little boat trip with me, Corrie on the Canal,” she chuckles.

But it’s likely to be flat shoes only on the deck.

Race

Gutsy Nicola was an unknown when she hit headlines two years ago after being sacked as a temp receptionist in London for refusing to wear high heels. She launched a petition against the sexist rule which raised 150,000 signatures on the Government’s website.

But she won’t be rocking the boat when she swaps her floating home for Sport Relief’s “Clash of the Channels” Boat Race this Friday. . Blackpool- born Nicola will be sticking her oar in, racing 1,200m across Greater Manchester’s Salford Quays as an ITV team, i ncluding Good Morning Britain’s Charlotte Hawkins, , Towie’s Ferne McCann and Emmerdale’s Chris Bisson, take on BBC celebs. “It’s brutal,” she adds. “I was hit t by an oar on the first day of training.” Meanwhile, she’s e’s loving her role as the other her Nicola. “She found out t her dad is a murderer, got t pregnant from a onenight ght stand and is keeping the e baby. She is brave. I want ant to be more like her but, t, realistically, I’m a bit t of a wuss.”