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Connie hyde (right), who plays Gina, says she wishes best mate Julie Hesmondhalgh was still in the soap as Hayley Cropper, so they could have a scene together. ‘However, when we were at drama school, we would corpse all the time, so that would probably be very bad!’ she laughs.

Julia Goulding (below), who plays Shona, says she has only been approached once by a fan – when she was in the toilets at Ikea. ‘A woman asked me to sign an autograph for her nephew,’ Julia, 32, tells us. ‘I don’t think I look much like Shona in real life,’ she adds.