Cops, cooks & calling it quits: SARAH FINDS HER HAPPY PLACE

The beloved actress was ready to walk away after a harrowing time on Coro

- Judy Kean

She’s come a long way from her days pulling pints in the Rover’s Return pub on Coronation Street.

Sarah Lancashire, whose breakthrough acting role was playing ditsy barmaid Raquel in the long-running soap, has gone on to become one of Britain’s most acclaimed TV stars, and more than 30 years after finding small-screen fame, she’s still showing why she deserves all the accolades.

Her starring role as no-nonsense police sergeant Catherine Cawood in the third series of crime drama Happy Valley has been touted as a “tour de force”, with critics using words like “extraordinary” and “compelling” to describe her performance. Yet Sarah thought the show’s producers had got it horribly wrong when they first cast her as Catherine back in 2014.

“For the first four weeks, I kept saying to the director, ‘I think you’ve made a big mistake. I am just not right for the part at all’,” recalls Sarah, 58. “He kept telling me to shut up. In the end, it’s all worked out very nicely!”

Modest about her acting talent, Sarah says the secret of her success when it comes to playing Catherine is doing her homework. “I spend a lot of time on preparation. I work with our police advisor Lisa Farrand, who is very good at showing me the ropes for procedural police stuff.”