Street fighter

THE last we saw of scheming Tracy Barlow, in Coronation Street, was her being sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering boyfriend Charlie Stubbs. Now she’s returning to the ITV1 soap and, according to the actress Kate Ford, “she’s got worse, nastier, if that’s possible”.

Being behind bars has changed her. ‘‘If you’re surrounded with people who are similar to you, you have to toughen up, and Tracy’s not really a tough person,”

Ford says.

‘‘She’s manipulative and a bit messed up, but not a fighter. There’s a lot of fighting going on in there and it’s made her a bit more cagey and bitter.’’ The actress found going back to Weatherfield after three years – during which time she’s married TV producer Jon Connerty and had a son, Otis – proved a nerve-wracking experience.

‘‘When you’ve been at home with a baby you get so used to spending time one-on-one that going back to work is really terrifying. You lose your confidence a bit,’’ she says.

Despite an anxiety-ridden start, it wasn’t long before Kate was feeling right at home in the role that won her awards for best bitch and best soap actress. ‘‘I’ve loved it more than I expected, which sounds weird, but it felt fresh. It just felt like a new job in a way,’’ she says.

Tracy reappears on screens when she’s allowed out of jail for a day to attend the funeral of grandmother Blanche Hunt.

Her six-week return will be followed by a longer stay at the end of the year.

The arch manipulator hits on a potential way to engineer early release from prison. With innocent Gail McIntyre awaiting trial for the murder of husband Joe, Tracy strikes a deal with police to extract a confession out of the widow in return for her own freedom. And it’s not long before Gail is duped by her cellmate.

‘‘The thing that’s quite sad about it is Gail thinks Tacy’s quite nice. And says to her ‘you’re actually a really nice person’, at which point Tracy feels really bad – but not so bad that she can’t do it.’’ Gail’s an unfortunate pawn in Tracy’s plan to get back to her daughter, Amy, who’s happily living with her dad, Steve McDonald, and his new wife, Becky.

Learning that the couple plan to adopt a sibling for Amy drives Tracy wild with jealousy and makes her desperate to scupper the adoption.

Ford admits that her own motherhood has helped her understand her character’s motivation. ‘‘I’m always really wary of saying you can’t relate to these things if you don’t have children because people might get a bit insulted by that,” she says.

‘‘But, for me, to draw on that feeling of someone else having that child and you were stuck away from them and didn’t know what they’d been taught, or someone else was doing everything you want to – it must be a horrible feeling.’’ The storyline paves the way for plenty of fights with new sparring partner, Becky. ‘‘Becky gives as good as she gets.

And Becky’s harder than Tracy is. She’s more of a street fighter. Tracy would throw fire bombs and run, whereas Becky would fight,’’ says Ford.

‘BECKY would win a fight in terms of strength, but Tracy would go further in terms of ruining Becky’s life.”

The actress’s return has been tinged with sadness. Filming Blanche’s funeral came only weeks after the real-life service for actress Maggie Jones, who died last year, aged 75.

Ford found it too painful to think about her co-star while shooting the scenes. ‘‘I went to Maggie’s funeral in London, as well. That was a beautiful funeral.

‘‘I had to not think about Maggie when it was Blanche’s funeral because it would have been too hard to get through the day.

But it was also difficult not to think about Maggie because the photograph of Blanche was on the front of the coffin, which is obviously Maggie.

‘‘It was hard, but I just tried to separate the two things.’’