The Stage

Maggie Jones

Published Tuesday 5 January 2010 at 12:40 by Michael Quinn

As the sharp-tongued harridan with a heart, Blanche Hunt in Coronation Street, Maggie Jones created one of the most iconic and popular characters ever to walk the cobbled stones.

Having unsuccessfully auditioned for the role, she was cast when Patricia Cutts committed suicide after playing the meddlesome mother of Deirdre Barlow for just two episodes in 1974. Blanche, by name if rarely by nature, became a resident of the street in the late nineties and Jones made the character her own - delivering her vinegar-soaked put-downs with a seraphic smile playing about her lips. Of pub landlady Liz McDonald, she pithily observed: “Skirt no bigger than a belt, too much eyeliner, and roots as dark as her soul.”

Jones had already appeared in Coronation Street twice before playing Blanche, ironically as a policewoman and later as a shoplifter. Despite the comedy that attached itself to the role, she played Blanche as straight as a die, winning a legion of fans and two British Soap Awards in 2005 and 2008. Stealing scene after scene with often-throwaway adroitness, she eloquently demonstrated that subtly of performance and appearing in a soap opera were not mutually exclusive.

Born Margaret Jones on June 21, 1934, after graduating from RADA, she worked in repertory and regularly with the Oxford and Salisbury Playhouses and Bristol Old Vic. She made her television debut in 1961 and came to national attention as the housekeeper Smither in The Forsyte Saga in 1967. More period drama followed, alongside sitcoms, dramas and original plays, including Poor Mother by Fay Weldon and Alan Bennett’s A Day Out. She made a notable impact in the three-year-long Yorkshire mining saga Sam in the mid-seventies.

Before becoming a Coronation Street regular in 1999, she appeared in The Beiderbecke Tapes, Goodnight Sweetheart, Heartbeat and Peak Practice.

In October she was admitted to hospital for major surgery and despite showing signs of recovery, died on December 2, aged 75. Her agent, Katie Threlfall, described her as “incredibly kind, honest and loved by many”.