For the love OF DOGS

DAME MAUREEN LIPMAN talks to) TV Times about an important new w storyline for Evelyn, and her five years on the cobbles

- ALISON SLADE

CORONATION STREET MONDAY, WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY, 8PM, ITV1 SOAP

Weatherfield favourite Evelyn Plummer is no stranger but a to confrontation, dispute she's had with a man mistreating his dog is about to spiral into something she never anticipated.

Having stolen the petrified pooch, she's intrigued by the owner Terry's failure to report her to the police, and deduces this week that he's running an illegal puppy farm.

ITV1 soap Coronation Street has worked with the RSPCA on the plot, which will shed light on a multi-million pound industry that can leave animals traumatised for life.

Dame Maureen Lipman, 77, who plays Evelyn, joined TV Times for an exclusive interview to talk about the storyline, and why she's fallen in love with her fictional home...

Your character famously prefers canines to people. Are you a dog lover, too?

Yes, I am. My secretary, Natalie, has a rescue dog, a podenco called Inky, and we have a ritual when I return home whereby Inky jumps on my lap and I give her a spinach puppy chew that’s shaped like a cigar and I pretend to be Winston Churchill, because she looks like him!

The dog that Evelyn and Roy Cropper share [Shih Tzu Freddie] is incredibly pretty, but it’s not really my sort of dog. I loved Cerberus [Evelyn’s late greyhound]. I like a dog where you can see all the shape. Evelyn’s the same; she likes a ‘proper’ dog.

Evelyn has rescued (stolen!) a mistreated dog, and it will become apparent that the owner Terry is running a puppy farm. What do you know about these places?