Mum's The Word, Grand Opera House, York, November 4 to 9

"I was born in Leeds, but I lived in York for a long time, about 15 years ago, in Haxby and Acomb," says Beverley, as she prepares to return to the city in the English premiere of a hit Canadian show about motherhood.

"I remember working on a play in York Minster, a very early Ibsen play, directed by Michael Winter, who used to be at the Theatre Royal. He worked with me quite often - in fact he helped me get my Equity card."

Beverley, who rose to fame as the high-maintenance blonde Liz McDonald in Coronation Street, is on tour with Casualty star Julia Watson, Tina Malone from Brookside, Polly Highton, Carole Anders and Anna Healy in Mum's The Word, a comedy about the trials and tribulations of having children. She will be in York for the closing week of the tour, at the Grand Opera House, playing the role of Deborah.

Written as a form of group therapy in Vancouver, Canada, in Spring 1993 by six women who had replaced glamorous professional stage careers with exhausted, bedraggled, amateur motherhood, the show has since transferred to Chicago, Minneapolis, Australia and Scotland for its European debut.

"I was first sent the script in Marbella - it's a gorgeous place to live! - and obviously you get a lot of scripts but I knew by page three or four that I wanted to do it. I've never laughed so much at a play. It makes me laugh, it makes me cry; it's written by six women and performed by six women but it's not a man-bashing play. The audiences have been about 50-50 men and women."

Beverley can draw upon her own experiences of motherhood for the play. "Yes, I am a mother myself! I have a daughter, Rebecca, who's an actress and she's doing very well; she's been in Sunburn for the BBC and The Grand for Granada, and she's just played Antigone at the Bristol Old Vic. Then there's my son, Joshua, who's 13. He's at school, and he wants to be an actor as well."

Beverley played a mother and wife in Corrie too, but there any similarities end. "After ten years in Coronation Street, although I loved it, I wanted to do other things. You do get lots of job offers for the same character under a different name but you have to be brave enough to say 'no', and do something different like this role."

That said, Beverley has not ruled out a return to Coronation Street. "I would never say 'never' to going back again, and I did go back for the 40th anniversary edition when the story was centred around Liz and Jim McDonald, which was great," she says.

"I must say that I was very fortunate to work in Coronation Street with Charlie Lawson and the two boys Simon Gregory, Nicholas Cochrane but to be honest that happens to me all the time. There was Jim Broadbent in The Peter Principle and I've just done the second series of Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps. We jumped into each other's arms as we were so happy to see each other again!"

'Two Pints' is heading for a third series, and so Beverley will have the chance to play another mother role again.

"Floella is the worst mother in the world. Oh my god, I can't say this, but she's so vulgar," says Beverley, who is full of admiration for scriptwriter Sue Nixon. "She's only 24 and she's a genius."

Beverley will forever be linked with Liz McDonald but she is happy spreading her wings. "A child is higher maintenance than Liz, without a doubt! Liz was easy to maintain; there wasn't much fabric in those mini skirts, but nothing was as gruelling as the filming schedule.

"We were shooting literally six days a week; no rehearsal time and you have no other life. With 'Two Pints' we have the weekend off," she says.

"At the moment, I'm doing 'Two Pints' and theatre, and I'm still not doing as much as I was in Coronation Street, but it was always fun - and if it wasn't fun I wouldn't have stayed."

Beverley continues to run fitness classes, and she plans to make her fourth video next year. "I took three classes a week even when I was in Coronation Street, and in Marbella I do six a week, and I've been teaching on this tour. In fact I think I'm taking classes while I'm in York," she says.

One last question needed answering: do blond mums have more fun? "I would think so. My life is never boring. It's chaos," says Beverley. "I don't think I'd be any good at a 9 to 5 job, and my children say the same!"

Mum's The Word, Grand Opera House, York, November 4 to 9. Performances: Monday to Thursday, 7.30pm; Friday, Saturday, 6pm, 8.30pm. Tickets: £10 to £20 on 01904 671818.

Updated: 09:51 Friday, November 01, 2002