Coronation Street actress Susie Blake is making her way back to the cobbles to join the cast for Deirdre Barlow’s funeral episodes.

Susie plays Bev Unwin, who is set to make a return according to Digital Spy. The soap’s scriptwriters have had Deirdre, played by the late Anne Kirkbride, staying with Bev to explain her absence from Weatherfield.

Anne died in January after a short illness and Deirdre originally disappeared from the street to escape Peter Barlow’s murder trial, but stayed on with Bev to support the character after her brother died.

Susie Blake
Susie Blake as Coronation Street’s Bev Unwin in 2004 (PA)

The sad news of Deirdre’s death will reach the cobbles in the summer, drawing back Bev, who Susie played between 2003 and 2006, and Peter, played by Chris Gascoyne, who left the street after being cleared of murder.

Susie said in January: “[Anne] made everybody feel part of the family. She was the one who got everyone together, made them laugh, raised the temperature.

Coronation Street Deirdre Barlow
Anne Kirkbride playes Deirdre Barlow in Coronation Street (ITV)

“If you went on location, she’d get out the chairs and she’d be sunbathing, making you laugh and taking inappropriate photographs of people who were snoring in deckchairs when they should have been learning their lines!

“She was absolutely key to keeping everybody’s energy up on a long day – at a funeral or at a wedding, or any occasion where the whole cast were there and we were all a bit down in the doldrums because it was a long day.”