Claudia Colby actress Rula Lenska says Coronation Street has become ‘sad’ in recent months


Claudia Colby actress Rula Lenska says Coronation Street has become ‘sad’ in recent months

Coronation Street star Rula Lenska says the ITV soap needs more of its trademark comedy after a string of ‘sad’ plots.

Recent storylines have seen Sinead Osbourne die of cervical cancer, Shona Ramsey shot and left in a coma, Yasmeen Nazir in an abusive relationship, and a new villain, Ray Crosby, prowling the cobbles.

Miss Lenska, who plays hairdresser Claudia Colby, says her co-star Maureen Lipman hopes to pitch her own funny ideas to the show’s bosses.

Rula Lenska, who plays Ken Barlow’s girlfriend Claudia Colby, said ‘the storylines have been incredibly dramatic and sad’ on Coronation Street recently

‘It’s one of the things that we’re really working towards,’ she told Woman’s Weekly magazine. 

‘Maureen is a brilliant writer as well as an actress and she’s put forward all sorts of very funny ideas.

‘Recently, the storylines have been incredibly dramatic and sad, so I think we need a little bit of humour now.’

Miss Lenska, 72, who found fame in the 1976 TV series Rock Follies, joined the soap in 2009, left in 2011, then rejoined in 2018, when she had her own comical plot in a hairdressing feud with rival Audrey Roberts.

Recent storylines have seen Sinead Osbourne (pictured) die of cervical cancer and Shona Ramsey shot and left in a coma

Recent storylines have seen Sinead Osbourne (pictured) die of cervical cancer and Shona Ramsey shot and left in a coma

Her character is dating Ken Barlow, the show’s only surviving original character. She said she never imagined joining the long-running soap as she isn’t ‘the least bit northern’.

She previously praised writers for the way they have tackled sensitive storylines including David Platt’s rape and Aidan Connor’s suicide.

She said: ‘What I’ve heard talking to the other members of the cast who’ve been involved in the suicide and the male rape there’s enormous amount of public interest and interaction so this is a series incomparable to any other soap in my opinion.’