KATHERINE DOW BLYTON has been in Coronation Street half a dozen times since first appearing in the ITV soap as Terry Duckworth’s girlfriend 15 years ago.

Now she’s back in Corrie playing not one but 11 characters, including such iconic Street characters as Ena Sharples, Hilda Ogden, Deirdre, Mavis, Audrey, Karen and Shelley.

The South Shields-born actress is also playing someone you probably won’t remember – Mr Horton, Terry Duckworth’s father-in-law.

Blyton is one of the five-strong cast playing 55 Street characters between them in a new stage comedy by Jonathan Harvey that marks the soap’s 50th anniversary in November.

Harvey, a playwright and Street scriptwriter, has condensed five decades of storylines and characters into a twohour show called Corrie! It opens next week at the Lowry, in Salford, just down the road from the Manchester studios where the soap is made.

Blyton and the other actors (Leanne Best, Simon Chadwick, Matthew Wait and Josie Walker) play 11 characters apiece. Charles Lawson, who played Jim McDonald for 11 years, is the narrator.

“We’re not doing impressions of these famous characters,” she explains. “But you do have to be willing to be adventurous to be 11 different characters.”

She didn’t know all the characters she was going to play until rehearsals began, although always knew Deirdre was one of them. “She’s difficult because she has quite a distinct voice,” she says.

“It’s been quite a challenge for us because you’re talking about people’s careers.

William Roache, for example, has been in it for 50 years. You have to do it with heart and respect because you don’t want to take the mickey out of someone’s performance. You want to make these characters come alive.”

Her past Street appearances have been limited to what she calls “one episode wonders”, most recently an immigration officer arresting a factory worker.

The play features scenes taken from the show’s half-century of episodes, often using the original dialogue.

“They made us a DVD of all the scenes that are in the play, which has been quite useful. None of us are impressionists but you want to do a true likeness.”

Shelley, who ran the Rovers at one point, has been a difficult one to capture “because her performance is so natural,”

says Blyton.

“Mavis is a dream, so is Audrey, because they have characteristics that stand out.

With Mavis, I just hope I’m not doing Les Dennis doing Mavis.”

She’s been kitted out with an “industrial hairnet” as worn by sharp-tongued Ena Sharples, a character who’s not quite as she remembered. “You imagine she’s a real old dragon, but she’s actually quite soft-spoken.”

Blyton expects some of the “real” actors will turn up to see Corrie! as the theatre is close to the studios. The theatre actors have already spotted a former Street star, Johnny Briggs, who played Mike Baldwin, in a bar. “We were all very excited, but a bit overwhelmed to approach him. He’s a character in the play – we do his final scene.”

She’s followed Coronation Street as a viewer. “I remember being at my gran’s and she would watch it religiously, so I’ve kind of grown up with it.

Blyton herself was a soap regular in Hollyoaks, where she played Sally Hunter for four-and-a-half years.

Her next TV role is a new series by Shane Meadows, This Is England, playing the mother of the main skinhead character.

“It’s the most exciting job I’ve done.”

■ Corrie! runs at the Lowry, Salford, from August 12 to 25. Tickets 0843-208-6005 or online at thelowry.com