Coronation Street is prepping for a very "Christmassy" Christmas this year, which will hopefully be a nice bit of warmth and fun after a pretty grim year of Phelan murdering everyone.

Part of their festive gifts include casting an EastEnders favourite, actress Janet Dibley.

Janet famously played Lorna Cartwright in the BBC soap, a woman who embarked on an affair with Phil Mitchell back in the late 1990s, later reappearing as the chair of an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting just two years ago.


Lorna Cartwright and Phil Mitchell in EastEnders
© BBC

ITV has confirmed to Digital Spy that she'll appear in 7 episodes. She will be playing a primary school head teacher in a nativity storyline alongside Brian Packham (Peter Gunn).

The soap's boss Iain MacLeod recently told Digital Spy and other press that Corrie's Christmas will be light, stating: "Without giving too much away. I wanted it to be a Christmassy Christmas.

"Obviously there's a history in the soap of trying to go and do the Angie and Den Christmas where it's all acrimony and divorce papers and vitriol.

"That's not really my preference, when you sit down as you try and digest your stuffing balls and sprouts, you need it to be warm and lighthearted in places and you need it to reek of Christmas."

Digital Spy