HAS FIZ CHEATED?

Corrie’s Jennie McAlpine on her character’s furtive behaviour that could spell the end for her and Tyrone

Fiz Stape and Tyrone Dobbs are as close to a rock-solid couple as exists on the famously volatile Coronation Street. But with Fiz having returned to the cobbles last week after spending almost a year away with troublesome daughter Hope in a Birmingham Pupil Referral Unit, their relationship will again be tested by the difficult eight-year- old. At the same time, there’ll be a suggestion Fiz has been having an affair, leaving viewers fearing the popular pairing could be about to hit the buffers.

Jennie McAlpine, who’s played Fiz since April 2001, says, ‘Fiz has been behaving secretively, perhaps covering up things that happened in Birmingham, begging the question of whether Hope is better, or if her behaviour’s just as bad as it was. This week we see Fiz taking furtive phone calls, and when someone is taking a phone call behind someone’s back it usually doesn’t end well.’

Jennie doesn’t think fans – most of whom adore mechanic Tyrone, played by Alan Halsall – will be happy if Fiz has been playing away, even though Tyrone previously cheated on her.

‘I don’t think they’ll react well,’ she says. ‘Tyrone is the one character you cannot be mean to in soaps! I’ll remind them he had a drunken onenight stand with Gemma from the kebab shop. But they’ll say, “Oh, but bless him!” I’m doomed, basically.’

Fiz and Tyrone were at each other’s throats when she returned last week to find Tyrone had forgotten to enrol Hope at Bessie Street for the new school year. Their situation was not helped by Tyrone’s grandmother Evelyn launching a sit-in protest to get the head to take Hope anyway.

Things will get worse this week, when Hope has to be rescued from

a fire at the factory. Fiz fears Hope was to blame and decides it’s best if her daughter is home-schooled.

‘Fiz thinks, “How hard can it be?”’ Jennie says. ‘Well, she quite quickly realises how hard it can be...’

Jennie, who married her long-time partner Chris Farr in January 2017, has two children. Albert is four, and Jennie’s just returned from maternity leave after giving birth to Hilda last October. So was her daughter named after that Corrie character, played by the late Jean Alexander? ‘I’m in love

with Hilda Ogden,’ admits Jennie, ‘but it’s a family name. I did get a message from Jean’s family when Hilda was born, though, which was lovely.’

Jennie is now back into the swing of what she describes as her ‘perfect’ job. ‘I was scared about learning my lines after returning from such a long time away, but it really has been like riding a bike,’ she says. ‘And I wasn’t dreading coming back to work because I missed it so much when I was off.’