Sad news today as Coronation Street icon Beverley Callard has confirmed that she has been diagnosed with breast cancer. The 68-year-old actor, best known for playing Liz McDonald in the ITV soap on and off between 1989 and 2020, found out last month.

The actor was speaking to Patrick Kielty on The Late Late Show, talking about her new role on long-running RTÉ soap Fair City, when she revealed the diagnosis.

 

 

“It’s difficult to know where to start. I knew I was coming over here for four weeks and then I’d have a couple of weeks back in the UK and back here for a long time.

“But I’d had some tests just before I left the UK and literally 15-20 minutes before … I was in my dressing room at Fair City, getting ready to go on, and I was quite nervous and thinking, ‘I hope everyone thinks I’m alright’, whatever.

“And my consultant rang me and said, ‘you’ve got to come back to the UK.’ I said, ‘well I can’t possibly, you know, I’ve just taken a new job and said I’m away for a month.'”

“And I was diagnosed with breast cancer,” she continued. “But I’m fine, I’m absolutely fine. My head was a mashed for the first few days. It’s very early stages and I’m along with thousands of other women as well.

“I travel back to the UK tomorrow, just for a couple of weeks. They’re gonna test lymph nodes and lymph glands and all that.

“Then I need an operation and some radiotherapy, and then I’m coming back to Fair City, so I will be back in just a few weeks.

“I’m good. This world is full of strong, feisty women and I love feisty women and I just thought, rather than read about it in a newspaper and it all be distorted and everything else, I just said it.”

Callard’s first episode of Fair City will air on Thursday, 19 February, and she is playing the long-lost mother of character Gwen Connolly.

Her role has been described as “quirky, unpredictable and sharp as a tack”, someone who “carries just enough edge to keep Carrigstown on its toes”.

Sad news today as Coronation Street icon Beverley Callard has confirmed that she has been diagnosed with breast cancer. The 68-year-old actor, best known for playing Liz McDonald in the ITV soap on and off between 1989 and 2020, found out last month.

The actor was speaking to Patrick Kielty on The Late Late Show, talking about her new role on long-running RTÉ soap Fair City, when she revealed the diagnosis.

“It’s difficult to know where to start. I knew I was coming over here for four weeks and then I’d have a couple of weeks back in the UK and back here for a long time.

“But I’d had some tests just before I left the UK and literally 15-20 minutes before … I was in my dressing room at Fair City, getting ready to go on, and I was quite nervous and thinking, ‘I hope everyone thinks I’m alright’, whatever.

“And my consultant rang me and said, ‘you’ve got to come back to the UK.’ I said, ‘well I can’t possibly, you know, I’ve just taken a new job and said I’m away for a month.'”

“And I was diagnosed with breast cancer,” she continued. “But I’m fine, I’m absolutely fine. My head was a mashed for the first few days. It’s very early stages and I’m along with thousands of other women as well.

“I travel back to the UK tomorrow, just for a couple of weeks. They’re gonna test lymph nodes and lymph glands and all that.

“Then I need an operation and some radiotherapy, and then I’m coming back to Fair City, so I will be back in just a few weeks.

“I’m good. This world is full of strong, feisty women and I love feisty women and I just thought, rather than read about it in a newspaper and it all be distorted and everything else, I just said it.”

Callard’s first episode of Fair City will air on Thursday, 19 February, and she is playing the long-lost mother of character Gwen Connolly.

Her role has been described as “quirky, unpredictable and sharp as a tack”, someone who “carries just enough edge to keep Carrigstown on its toes”.