I HAD PLANNED TO BE A RADIO JOURNALIST... BUT WAS TOLD I SOUNDED TOO NORTHERN!

HER DISTINCTIVE northern voice has been heard in a host of major TV shows, from Coronation Street and Scott & Bailey to her latest hit, The Madame Blanc Mysteries. But popular actress Sally Lindsay reveals she was turned down for her first choice of career...because bosses thought she sounded too northern.

- By Sue Crawford

While studying at Hull University, Sally landed her own radio show.

With her heart set on becoming a radio journalist she began applying for jobs, but to her dismay nobody was interested.

“I got rejected by all the local radio stations, because they didn’t like northern accents, even though I was in Hull!

“I’ve always loved radio journalism, but I used to get comments like, ‘We don’t need a female Terry Christian thanks very much’.

“It’s unbelievable when you think about it, but it was a different time and place.

“There were hardly any of us on radio with an accent in the Nineties.”

Sally lets out a sigh: “There was the ladette thing towards the end, but they all had to be drop dead stunning as well — there were no normal northern women.”

Stockport-born Sally went into acting instead, touring the country in plays before landing her first TV role in 2000, playing Michelle in an episode of The Royle Family.

She confesses that big break only came about by chance, after established star Kathy Burke turned down the role of Twiggy’s girlfriend. The hunt for a new actress fortuitously coincided with a showcase event for Manchester's casting directors, organised by Sally’s agent.

“There were around 25 of us there — all of us unknowns — and we did a monologue,” Sally recalls. “Everyone did ‘very dramatic, I'm going to cry now’ speeches, and I didn’t.

“I did something funny, Alan Bennett’s Her Big Chance that Julie Walters famously did. The next day I got offered the part in The Royle Family. It was meant to be Kathy Burke, but [the show] said they needed a complete unknown.

“Rather than go down the dramatic side at the showcase, I just did what I was best at and it was life changing.”

The next year Sally landed the role of warm-hearted Rovers Return barmaid Shelley Unwin in Coronation Street, a part she played for five years.