‘I hated her!’ Who nearly halted Wendi Peters' return to Corrie?

Wendi Peters has admitted that she had doubts about returning to Coronation Street.

After a seven-year absence, the actress is making a return to the cobbles for a six-week stint as bold and brash Cilla Battersby-Brown.

Wendi said that she watched Cilla’s last week of episodes in 2007, before her character left for Vegas, in preparation for going back to the set, but it made her question her decision to return.

“I hated her! I was watching with my husband and we finished watching them and I went: ‘What am I doing? Why am I doing this? Why am I going back to this?’,” she said.

Her doubt was one of the reasons she decided to tone down her alter-ego for her return.

Despite her long history with the show, Wendi said she felt like a “little schoolgirl with first day nerves” when she arrived at the Salford set .

When Cilla returns to our screens, her character will be hiding the fact that she's suffering with osteoporosis.

“The first thing I did, and it sounds terrible, was check that larger ladies can get osteoporosis,” says Wendi. “But actually it often happens to people who are slightly larger because it’s down to bad diet, excess alcohol - everything you’d associate Cilla with.”

Of returning to Corrie again in the future, she added: “You can never say, ‘I’m not going back’, because you never know how your life is going to pan out.”

Coronation Street continues on ITV on Monday, October 20, 7.30pm. Cilla returns on Wednesday, October 22.