Maureen Lipman thinks on-set distancing measures are 'weird'

Coronation Street\'s Maureen Lipman thinks shooting scenes with social distancing measures in place is "weird", amid the "war" on coronavirus.

The 74-year-old actress - who plays Evelyn Plummer in the long-running soap - has admitted that filming during the pandemic has created some unique "challenges" for the cast.

She told \'The One Show\': "It\'s really weird, I can\'t begin to describe how weird it is.

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"We did a sort of fight scene last week and I\'m trying to get between two men who are two metres apart, and I\'m in the middle going, \'Pack it in, pack it in.\'

"It\'s challenging, we are having to be resourceful, it\'s a war, a war against a virus and we\'re having to throw everything we\'ve got [at it]."

Maureen returned to the cobbles in 2018, having previously played Lillian Spencer on the ITV soap in 2002.

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The actress recently confessed to worrying that her return might leave some regular cast members feeling "cheesed off".

She said: "On my first day back, I was incredibly nervous. I learned my lines until I knew them by heart, but I didn\'t know how the rest of the cast would react to me.

"There\'s always that feeling when you join something new that the regulars will be slightly cheesed off that you\'ve come.

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"They have their jokes, they have their seats, then you arrive seeming a bit aloof because you\'re actually more nervous than they know. It was a bit like going back to school!"

Maureen also attributed her longevity to having "the gift of the gab".

She explained: "I owe a lot of my success to having the gift of the gab.

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"I was never a pretty young thing: I got my dad\'s nose, slightly squinting eyes and buck teeth (I later had them fixed).

"So after drama school, it was a question of convincing people to give me the jobs when they were expecting a blonde with pert breasts to walk in."