Coronation Street’s Sue Devaney is perfect as she is and that’s the entire article, okay?

She’s currently flooring fans with her tour de force performance as Debbie Webster. Battling early onset dementia, being sent to prison for a crime she didn’t commit, and dealing with the fall out of blowing her biggest secret: that she’s Carl Webster’s (Jonathan Howard) mum, not his sister.

With a varied, vast career, including roles in Victoria Wood’s near-perfect sitcom, dinnerladies, Shameless, Johnny Briggs and Casualty, she’s proven herself time and time again as a varied and talented actor.

Though, as Sue herself tells it, she was once told that she’d need a very unique operation to succeed in the acting industry.

‘What this industry says to you is crazy’

‘When I was in London and I was starting out, I was told by a casting director that I could have an operation to put extra bone in my knees to make me taller, because I’d never work at my height. They said it would give me an extra couple of inches.

‘What this industry says to you is crazy. Especially when you’re young, because you think ‘maybe he’s right, maybe I’m not going to work at this height and with this accent.’

‘I’d turn up to castings talking with a posh RP voice, because I thought they wanted a blank canvas.’

Revealing that she’s not much more comfortable in her own skin than the young, starry-eyed girl who was told that she’d need leg extensions to succeed, Sue revealed in an interview with The Mirror that acknowledging where her strengths lie has been the key to her self-acceptance.

‘But at this age, I feel comfortable in my own skin. I’m comfortable with the voice that I’ve got and I feel comfortable playing Northern women. When I was younger, I did anything to change that.

‘Now I think acting is about knowing your limitations and knowing what you can do. I love Shakespeare, but I didn’t train, so give me Northern comedy and I know where I am with that.’

Sue on playing Debbie

As previously mentioned, fans have been utterly blown away by the Sue’s recent performances as Debbie Webster, a role she played for a year in 1984, a role she reprised 34 years later in 2019.

As she continues to struggle with the symptoms of her dementia, Debbie also blew her biggest secret when she revealed to Carl, who’d always thought that she was his sister, that she’s actually his mum, and she’s known the entire time that he framed her for causing the death of Billy Mayhew (Daniel Brocklebank) in the Corriedale pile up.

After being sentenced to nearly three years in the clink, Debbie suffers a TIA mini-stroke and subsequently collapses. Her light at the end of the tunnel? A visitation request from Carl, who previously branded her a ‘selfish bitch’ upon the revelation of his true parentage.

‘Carl comes to see her and decides to turn the situation to his advantage. He pulls on Debbie’s heartstrings and she says she’ll do everything she can to make it up to him.

‘She’s his mother and she just wants his love, however that is. She will still love him whatever he does and when she finds out he’s not moving back to Germany and he’s staying in Weatherfield, in her mind that’s because he loves her and he doesn’t want to leave her.’

Unfortunately for Debbie, prison life is hardly going to be a walk in the park. Though she forms a relationship with established Corrie villain, Lou Michaelis (Farrel Hegarty), she’ll also make a dangerous enemy.

‘She makes a lovely friendship with Lou, but there’s another inmate who is hard as nails and she gets into a few fights while she’s in there.’