Where are they now? Corrie Icons of the 90s - Deborah McAndrew

Deborah McAndrew first appeared in Coronation Street in 1990 as feisty (when that word still had true meaning on Corrie) Angie Freeman. I loved Angie, she was a breath of fresh air - and the first woman I know of to drink pints in the Rovers Return.

Since leaving Corrie as Angie Freeman, Deborah has gone on to massive success as an award-winning playwright. She even turned down a return to Corrie in its script department.

Deborah has said that she was never comfortable with fame that Coronation Street brought. After leaving Coronation Street, she went back to her first love - theatre. As well as acting, she would write "in the gaps".

But her priorities changed when her daughter was born in 2001, meaning she no longer wanted to go on tour or spend weeks in strange towns. "Basically, overnight I switched my focus from acting to writing, and that's where I've been for the last 14 years now," she says.

But she did not sever all ties with Coronation Street. She was, she reveals, offered the chance of to return - this time working in the script department, not in front of the cameras.

McAndrew submitted a script to producers about 10 years ago, she says, leading them to invite her to spend time in the story office.

"It was like work experience," she says. "I went to story conference, which was a bit peculiar because the writers were looking at me going, 'What's she doing here?'"

She was eventually offered a job as a storyliner. Storyliners take story ideas from writers and plan how they will pan out over days, weeks and months. They then plan what action needs to take place in each episode and send the plans back to the writers, who pen the dialogue for individual episodes.

"They offered me a job in the story office, but I didn't take it," she says. "I didn't pursue the idea of writing for Corrie because I didn't think it was right for me at that point.  I was still learning my craft at that point, and I still was more focused on the theatre, and I had projects on and a very young child. I didn't want to be a storyliner, even though I'd enjoyed it and leaned a lot from it. I wanted to write the drama. So I pulled back from that. But they were really nice to me, and I don't have any negative feelings about Corrie at all.

Visit Deborah's website here.

Read our blogger Graeme's interview with Deborah McAndrew

Read more Corrie news, interviews and spoilers  

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