Bev Callard
It’s all change for Corrie actress Bev Callard – but she couldn’t be happier
‘It’s exciting territory for me as Liz starts working in the medical centre, of all places’
Liz McDonald has been landlady of the Rovers Return for the best part of 27 years – but not for much longer. This month, she hands over her beloved pub to new owners and while she’s in bits about having to start again, Beverley, who plays her, couldn’t be happier. “It’s like a whole new lease of life for me and a fresh start,” she beams. “Sometimes you need that. Being in the pub was great but it’s very tiring – especially on your feet – and sometimes you’ll only have a few lines to say. This is fantastic because it’s completely new, very exciting territory for me. Liz starts working in the medical centre, of all places, and she’s so not cut out for it. She doesn’t need glasses but starts wearing them because she thinks specs make her look intelligent, she can’t pronounce the doctor’s name and medical terms correctly and, best of all, she and her new boss – a very efficient woman called Moira – take an instant dislike to each other. In one scene, Moira sends her home to get changed into something more suitable because her garish clothes are giving the patients migraines! “There are also some really funny scenes with Liz and her son Steve. They’re living together in the tiny flat above Street Cars (Corrie’s taxi firm) and, as you can imagine, it gets very claustrophobic. Liz is also very sceptical about Steve’s new love interest. She thinks there’s no chemistry and says things like, ‘She’s a nice girl, but if she doesn’t put a snap in your celery, she isn’t worth having’.
‘Overcoming depression is the hardest thing I’ve done. I never thought it would happen to me’
They really do write some classic lines for Liz!” Away from work, Bev has also made something of a fresh start when it comes to her health and wellbeing. It was well-documented last year that she’d had a relapse of the clinical depression that struck her down in 2009, due to the fact that the medication she’d been taking for some time had been discontinued. It took a while to find the right combination of new medication but happily, she’s now feeling great. “I’m really well and feel like I’m back to normal,” she says. “I have to be sensible – I’m a workaholic and have to try to relax more, which I don’t find easy. Overcoming clinical depression is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I never thought it would happen to me; I am a strong female and very feisty. But I think depression has a tendency to affect strong people as we keep going no matter what. We take everything on and I’m a perfectionist – I learn my lines way too early – and I’m also something of a people pleaser. I put a lot of pressure on myself. It helps that I still teach fitness classes twice a week and an added benefit is that the weight I’ve put on due to medication is slowly shifting!” Family is important to Beverley. She calls her husband Jon her ‘absolute rock’ and is immensely proud of her actress daughter Rebecca who recently starred in the gripping ITV drama Fearless. “Rebecca’s doing so well and filming at the moment,” she enthuses. “She’s been very busy. She has two sons – Sonny and George – and has turned quite a lot of stuff down in the past in order to be there for them, but now they’re 11 and nine, so more independent. It’s a balancing act for every working mum, isn’t it? I don’t see nearly enough of her and the boys as they live in London and I’m in Manchester, but I’m trying to organise some time during the school summer holidays when the boys can come here for the week. That will be so nice!”