There’s more to her than meets the eye (Picture: ITV)
Watch out, Weatherfield. Death is coming to Coronation Street. It’s got an Irish accent and makes a damn good cup of tea…
Maggie Driscoll (Pauline McLynn) may not seem very threatening. Not unless you’re Eva Price (Catherine Tysldesley). The barb-tongued battleaxe of the new Driscoll clan has had it out for her son Ben’s (Aaron McCusker) new girlfriend ever since she first stepped behind the bar of the Rovers Return.
Not since the days of Blanche Hunt and Bet Lynch have we seen such a war of words as Maggie constantly criticises Eva over how to run their new pub, throwing more shade than a solar eclipse.
But Eva may have a lot more to worry about than the odd catty remark. Maggie’s got blood on her hands…
Corrie is set to turn back the clocks in a special flashback episode focusing on Maggie’s birthday. As celebrations get underway, Maggie reflects on her younger days… and we get a tantalising glimpse of this matriarchal monster-in-law’s origin story. Actress Pauline McLynn tells all…
A flashback delves into Maggie’s past (Picture: ITV)
‘It is going to be a very big birthday. She’s 65, which is a nod to the show’s anniversary. When it comes to events, Maggie, we discover, is like anybody who’s the head of the family. You put on your game face every day, you go out, and you do what you have to; you put on a performance. What we’ll find out during the birthday is a little bit more of the personal Maggie, whether she likes it or not.’
And what do we learn? For one, we get to meet Maggie’s other son. Not to mention the mysterious Mr Driscoll. ‘As all the merriment is going on around her, she remembers when they were growing up — she has two sons, one lives in America. We finally find out a bit more about her husband.’
Pauline reflects on what it was like to work with a younger version of her own character. ‘For me, it was just the most magical, strange thing ever because there is a flashback scene that you see through Maggie’s eyes, and I got to meet the younger me. I’m absolutely longing to see it because sometimes if you’re doing a flashback, you’ll be in the flashback, of course. But this was properly going back in time.
Maggie Driscoll is a member of the new family who live in the Rovers Return (Picture: ITV)
‘The art department, the costume department, and the makeup team did such a great job of putting it together because anything retrospective is really hard to get the look and the writing right. They are just so brilliant on that, and the detail is fabulous.’
But who dies? Who does Maggie murder? Understandably, Pauline was tight-lipped on the details. What we do know is the events in the flashback made the woman we see before us.
‘It’s actually very moving when you see what happens in the flashback because it shows the difficulty of being a young mother. I won’t say whether she was happy or unhappy in the marriage; you can decide for yourself, because there’s no slant on it, it’s just presented as what happened. It’s intriguing, and it’s one of those things that you know when you see it, that this will have repercussions somewhere, somehow.
‘It could be way down the line. We don’t know, so you’ll be waiting for somebody to say, “Can I just ask you…?” and then it’ll just take one question to unlock a whole load of things. It could even be a question from her son, Ben. It’s obviously something they don’t talk about.’
Can’t wait for the next twist?
Hi, I’m Calli Kitson, Soaps reporter at Metro. I cover Emmerdale, EastEnders, Corrie and more.
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Whoever died in that fateful flashback, one thing is for sure. It turned Maggie into the fierce protector of her family we see today, which could be seriously dangerous for prospective daughter in law Eva.
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‘She’s one of those very fierce women who’s fiercely protective of the family’ Pauline explains. ‘Obviously, she just doesn’t really approve of Eva. She may like her, and if Ben wasn’t around, I’m sure they’d get on really well. But it’s that thing of, you can approve of somebody until they’re joining your family; then it’s a whole other set of restrictions that need to be put in place.
‘So far, there’s been loggerheads going on there, and she’s just so mean to Eva. It’s really about to reach a crisis point, I believe. That rings true to me; this is what it’s like to be part of a family. She sees herself as the matriarch; it’s her way or the highway.’
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