Actress Maureen Lipman becomes “Coronation Street”’s first dame

Actress Maureen Lipman has been honoured with as dame by Prince of Wales at Windsor Castle becoming the first from Coronation Street.

She is the first serving actor in the ITV soap’s 61-year history to receive a damehood or a knighthood, reports BBC.

The 75-year-old, the report says, has played Evelyn Plummer since 2018, part of a career lasting more than 50 years.

She revealed she raided the programme’s wardrobe department to find a hat to wear to the investiture ceremony.

Speaking afterwards, she said she “never expected” to receive such an honour.

“It’s been a long time coming because I heard about it in 2020 and then I couldn’t collect it,” she said. “And so the coat you bought becomes like something you don’t want to wear.

“Then it becomes, ‘What the heck do I wear on my head?’, and then in the end I went to Coronation Street and I said, ‘Have you got any fascinators in wardrobe?’ and they gave me seven.

I travelled back from Manchester with seven hats and on Tuesday I had friends round and they said, ‘Wear that, no that, not that’.

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