Claire Sweeney has undergone quite the transformation for her gritty new Coronation Street role.
The former Brookside star – best known for playing Lindsey Corkhill in the Channel 4 soap between 1991 and 2003 – is set to arrive on t’cobbles as Cassie, the birth mother of Tyrone Dobbs.
In first-look pictures of Claire in character, she looks worlds away from her usual glamorous self.
Claire appears make-up free with grazes on her face, wearing a hoodie and baseball cap with her hair tied back.
Cassie is set to leave Tyrone stunned when she rocks up on the Street later this month, as the Weatherfield mechanic has long been told by his grandmother Evelyn Plummer (Dame Maureen Lipman) that her daughter – and his biological mother – is dead.
Tyrone grew up believing that his mum was Jackie Dobbs (played by Margi Clarke), but in 2018 investigations into his parentage brought him into contact with Evelyn for the first time, and he discovered evidence that Evelyn’s daughter Cassandra was actually his birth mother.
Cassie’s backstory is that Evelyn had abandoned Tyrone at a police station in 1982, not trusting Cassie to bring him up due to her drug habit. There, he was found by Jackie, who brought Tyrone up as her own.
Soap bosses previously teased that Tyrone will face heartache over Cassie’s arrival in Weatherfield, as secrets and lies threaten to destroy his relationship with Evelyn.
Claire said in April of joining the show: “Even though I’ve been lucky enough to have enjoyed an amazingly varied career for nearly 40 years - being cast in Coronation Street is, to me, better than being cast in a Hollywood movie! I’ve watched it all my life and can’t quite believe that I’ll now be stepping onto those famous cobbles myself.
“I was really nervous when I got the scripts to audition as this show means so much to me and my family and this is Corrie gold, I was beyond thrilled and very grateful when I got the call that Iain MacLeod is trusting me to play Tyrone’s Mum and work alongside one of my heroes, Dame Maureen Lipman.
“Cassie is a character who is definitely going to make an impact - I just hope the audience will enjoy watching her as much as I’m going to be enjoying playing her!”
Coronation Street airs Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at 8pm on ITV1 and ITVX.