Coronation Street’s Mary Taylor (Patti Clare) has never had a conventional love life; her crush on Norris Cole (Malcolm Hebden) resulted in a kidnap, her fling with Brendan Finch (Ted Robbins) ended up in humiliation and her love for Dev Alahan (Jimmi Harkishin) was unrequited.
From 2020 onward, however, she’s had her sights set firmly on one man, and one many only: ITV presenter, Ben Shephard.
It’s been previously established that Mary has a blanket, emblazoned entirely with pictures of Ben, that she proudly showed off. On episodes airing around Valentine’s Day last year, she proudly announced that she would be spending her evening cuddling up to her Ben pillow.
This came after her announcement that she wanted her funeral to be entirely Ben Shephard themed. Seriously.
During an appearance on ITV’s Lorraine, Patti was by host Lorraine Kelly about her character infatuation: ‘Now look, Mary is obsessed, I think it’s fair to say, with someone very close to here. Our Ben Shephard. She adores him, doesn’t she, and why not?’
Patti replied ‘Mary is deeply in love and very possessive of Ben Shephard, and as the years have gone on, it’s developed. So, she does have a comfort blanket, she does talk about him constantly in Preston’s Petals.
‘It would be wonderful one day if Ben did come onto the cobbles and went to see Mary in Preston’s Petals and bought some flowers from her and they had a wonderful afternoon.
‘However, nobody believed her that he’d been there, I think that would be wonderful.’
Lorraine cut to the This Morning set, where Ben and his co-host Cat Deeley were waiting for her call.
Never one to mince her words, Lorraine jumped straight to the point: ‘Ben Shephard, Coronation Street cameo. Tell me, could it happen?’
Ben answered immediately: ‘I’m ready.’
He continued: ‘Lovely to see you Patti. Let Mary know that Ben Shephard is very excited…willing and able. I’ll be up there as soon as I can be.’
Lorraine replied: ‘She will be absolutely over the moon. I don’t know if Ben would actually escape from Mary. I have visions of you tied to a radiator. It could get a bit dark.’
Patti was on the show to discuss the upcoming ‘An Audience with Coronation Street’ tour of which she’ll be taking part in.
Speaking from her home after the tube strike prevented her from appearing in person, Patti gave fans an idea of what to expect.
‘It’s a wonderful evening full of laughs, full of behind the scene stories and a few secrets – I’m saying no more – life on the cobbles.
Each night has four actors, and then we have an icon joining us for the second half. I can’t wait!’
‘This whole idea of An Audience with Coronation Street is a really, really good idea, because it gives people the chance to ask questions and they can find out a little bit more about what goes on behind the scenes, I guess it’s just a celebration of one of our most successful shows,’ Lorraine continued.
‘Absolutely. Absolutely, and it’s just going to be a really fun night, and of course, we’ve never done it before, so it’s a brand new initiative, so we’ll be experiencing it for the first time altogether as actors and there are wonderful audiences around the country, so I agree with you. I think it’s a wonderful celebration of a British institution.’ Patti replied.
As Patti is currently celebrating fifteen years on the cobbles, she reminisced with Lorraine over how she got started on the show.
‘You only supposed to be in for a few episodes, but we all just fell in love with Mary, she’s a great character,’ Lorraine said.
‘She’s she’s slightly out there, isn’t she?’ Patti began.
‘Yes, I was originally booked for 5 episodes, and after my 5 episodes, I wrote to the producer saying ‘I’ve had a wonderful time’.
‘They phoned my agent saying ‘why is she saying goodbye?’ Because there’s more episodes and I didn’t realise that!’
Conversation turned to Patti’s most famous relationship on the show, her unrequited love for, and later wonderful friendship with miserly busybody, Norris.
‘I really miss Malcolm,’ Patti began. ‘I mean, he’s one of my closest friends, so obviously, I’m still in touch with him. But on the show, it was such a pleasure to work with him and you know, it’s quite rare when you hit it off with somebody on sets, you know, it’s chemistry, isn’t it?
‘So we both had such great fun together and I’m so pleased, you know, we’re still friends who are still in each other’s lives.’
Will Ben finally make all of Mary’s dreams come true some day soon?
