WENDI PETERS is best known for playing Cilla Battersby-Brown in Coronation Street. Theatre appearances include The Vagina Monologues and Grumpy Old Women Live. She was also a finalist in Celebrity MasterChef. She plays Mrs Metherell in Northern Broadsides touring revival of The Game by Harold Brighouse.

How does it feel to star in a play, The Game, that’s not been performed for nearly 100 years?

I’M absolutely thrilled about it. I’d never heard of this play – obviously I’ve heard of Harold Brighouse because of Hobson’s Choice. When I read it, I was hooked. It’s set in 1913 and was written then, but it’s so relevant to today. Not just the main theme, which obviously is football, but the class system. We like to think there is no class system nowadays but there is. A rich girl marrying a poor boy, his mother not wanting him to get into that situation, and her father not wanting her to marry him. It’s just a really good meaty play.

There are a lot of laughs in there, and some really great characters.

How would you describe your character, Mrs Metherell?

She is very, very strong. She’s the mother of the star football player Jack, and she obviously adores this boy. She’s mollycoddled him, looked after him on his own from being a young child, and she really wants what’s best for him. She doesn’t want him marrying some woman who doesn’t know how to clean the flags outside the front door properly, or keep a house. She doesn’t think this girl is good enough for him.

What did you think of the character of Cilla?

I loved playing her. But I wouldn’t want to live next door to her. She’s not a nice character.

Is it tough working on a soap like Coronation Street?

It’s very, very hard if you’re in a main storyline.

You’ll be in make-up at seven o’clock in the morning and not finishing until seven at night. Then you go home and you’ve got six scenes to learn for the following day. So for a certain amount of time you’ll be extremely busy. But then, it moves on to the next family. Sometimes you get two or three weeks off, or you go up for just a couple of days filming where you’re sitting in a Rovers booth doing a few scenes, or you’re at the corner shop. It comes in fits and starts, which I found frustrating living in London.

Would you go back?

I was lucky enough, nine months after I left, to be asked if I’d be interested in doing a DVD of Cilla.

We went to South Africa and filmed. Who’d say no to that? I saw it as closure for the time being on the character. But never say never. I’d be stupid to say I don’t ever want to go back because you never know, in five or six years time I might not have any work for three years and say ‘I’d quite like to go back there’.

After you made the final of Celebrity MasterChef, lots of people are asking for your recipe for sticky toffee pudding.

I could make a fortune. It’s amazing because (MasterChef presenter) John Torode actually uses my sticky toffee pudding recipe in his restaurant, Smiths of Smithfield.

What about other recipes?

I’m working on a proposal for a recipe book. I’d love to do a recipe book purely on puddings. I love baking at home. I made a whole batch of whoopie pies for my daughter’s birthday. They’re like the new cupcake and they’ve come over here from the US.

When did the acting bug strike?

I persuaded my mum to let me go to ballet lessons when I was about eight because my cousins did. I went on to do tap and modern and every form of dance. Through the dancing school I got involved in Blackburn amateur dramatics. I remember thinking this is what I really love, this is where I’m happiest and it’s what I want to do.

You studied at the London Studio Centre – did any of your fellow students also go on to make a name for themselves?

Liz Hurley was in the year above me. She was absolutely bonkers, really good fun and joining in with everything. We were in a lot of the college productions together, including Cabaret and Grease.

What about starring in two very different touring productions, The Vagina Monologues and Grumpy Old Women Live?

I’d done lots of theatre, but it always had the fourth wall where you were doing a play in your little space and the audience looked in. With those productions the fourth wall went and we were doing almost stand-up, talking to the audience, involving them, sometimes being heckled a little bit. It was a new skill I wanted to learn, and I loved it. I loved the response from the audience.

Has your ten-year-old daughter Gracie shown any interest in performing?

She does lots of stuff at school and loves it. I’ve never known a ten-year-old who’s been to see so many shows in the West End or so much theatre.

My husband was in the cast of Cats for its last three years. Just before it closed, we took her. She was 18 months old and saat through the whole of Cats on her own seat absolutely enthralled by it.

■ The Game: Nov 15-20, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, box office 01723-370541, and Nov 23-27, York Theatre Royal, box office 01904-623568.