You can’t miss Lisa George in the corner of the Coronation Street canteen.

Dressed in a pillar-box red sweater with ‘love’ scrawled across her bosom, multiple gold chains around her neck, and huge blue and diamanté earrings dangling from her lobes (picked for her by Kate Ford, aka Tracy Barlow), Lisa’s platinum blonde hair is in a ponytail, with her dark eyes framed by lashings of mascara.

If she looks exactly like Underworld machinist Beth Tinker – the bubbly character she’s played since 2011 – it’s because she’s just stepped off the set in her lunch break.

But the real Lisa is a very different lass from her over-the-top, in-your-face character.

Sat in the Manchester cafeteria, Lisa – who’s currently starring in Dancing On Ice – admits she’s anxious and self-conscious in the limelight.

‘I get mistaken for Beth a lot,’ says Lisa, 49.

Lisa's says she is nothing like her Corrie character Beth (
Image:
ITV)

‘I love playing her, I like her bolshiness, her comedy, and all her 1980s-style quirkiness. But I’m private, I don’t want people to know every time I go to the toilet. People think I am just like her, but I’m not at all.’

Pulling on her ice-boots to partner new professional Tom Naylor, the actress is skating way out of her comfort zone on the show.

‘I’ve kept a low profile in the past because of my poor body image, I was never confident about my weight and didn’t like how I looked,’ she confesses.

‘I didn’t want to be in magazines because the other girls at Corrie are really slim and pretty, and there’s a lot of pressure. I’m 20-30 years older than them.

‘I hold myself back a lot. I’m a bag of nerves. I’ve always been told it’s like I have an invisible rope around my neck hanging myself because I know I can do it – but I stop myself all the time. I’m insecure. I think people will laugh at me…’

It was a milestone birthday looming later this year, Lisa explains, that pushed her to take part in ITV’s popular reality show.

‘Everyone is saying it will be nice for people to see the real me. But actually, I agreed to do it because I am turning 50 in October this year, which is a huge deal, and I am determined to get fit. Instead of fat and diabetic, which I currently am. I have Type 2 diabetes which I want to get rid of.

‘I skated when I was a child until I fell and cut my chin open in a competition. Then I lost my confidence and stopped. It’s been 40 years since I’ve been on the ice.

Practising on the ice with Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean (
Image:
ITV/Shutterstock)

'A little voice was telling me I could do it. I went for the audition, and I absolutely loved it! I felt so free. So I signed up. Getting older, you start to lose your inhibitions a bit more.’

Setting her alarm for 5am to practice before work, the exercise is paying off for the shrinking star.

‘It’s helped me tone up and drop a dress size, but I haven’t lost a pound, which is frustrating! My problem is my middle section, and I don’t like my arms, I want them covered up. I won’t wear anything skimpy.

‘But there are lots of women my age, perimenopausal women like me, who are not body confident. I’m doing it for them, I’m not a supermodel like [her fellow contestant] Caprice.’

When she took to the ice last Sunday for the first time, she came second on the leaderboard.

Her 73-year-old parents were cheering her on, as were her older sister, Helen, 51 (who works as a hospital receptionist ), and Lisa’s adult niece and nephew.

The actress grew up in Grimsby, with her stay-at-home mum, Min, while their dad, Ken, mostly worked abroad for a chemical construction company, building oil refineries.

Lisa wanted to act since she was 12. As a teenager, she lived in Holland for a couple of years because of her dad’s job, which left her feeling like an outsider.

With Coronation Street co-star and on-screen hubby Andy Whyment, who plays Kirk

‘All the other children were boarding school kids, ex-pats and very privileged embassy children, they came to school in cars with flags on the front. I felt like this dobber from Grimsby! No one understood me, I had a really strong accent. It was very different from my normal high school.’

Lisa, whose passions are singing and musicals, returned to Grimsby for sixth form, but failed her A-levels.

‘My teachers weren’t interested in me,’ she shrugs. ‘I just wanted to go to drama school and they told me it was a pipe dream.’

After working as a Blue Coat, Lisa eventually got a place at the National Youth Theatre summer school in London which ‘changed my life completely’. She also had acting lessons at the drama school, LAMDA.

She cut her teeth touring with a stage musical version of Prisoner: Cell Block H , then landed various small parts on TV shows, including Emmerdale , Holby City , Casualty and even Corrie .

But only landing her current role as Beth Tinker, a former model, and girlfriend of Steve McDonald, in 2011.

‘It wasn’t a huge celebration as I initially thought it was for just two episodes,’ says Lisa.

But when she found out she was being kept on she did ‘buy a bottle of champagne’ which she drank with her mate who worked on the perfume counter at Boots.

Filming scenes last October, where Beth’s niece, Sinead Tinker (Katie McGlynn), died of cancer, fans saw how Lisa could act tragedy as well as comedy.

Lisa is proud to have worked on the storyline which saw Sinead Tinker (played by Katie McGlynn) battling with cervical cancer (
Image:
ITV)

‘I felt like those storylines were some of the best work I’ve done,’ says Lisa. ‘I got to flex different acting muscles, and it was nice to show that Beth is not just gobby and loud.’

Off-screen, Lisa has just been to support her pal Katie, who she describes as ‘like a real niece to me’ in panto.

She’s also great friends with Andrew Whyment, who plays Beth’s hubby Kirk, and came second in I’m A Celebrity… last year.

‘He didn’t tell me he was going into the jungle! I was fuming with him. He knew at least two months before I’d discussed whether I should do Dancing On Ice with him. But I love Andy.’

Fame sits quite awkwardly with Lisa. She doesn’t like it when she’s approached for selfies…

‘I just think, “Why do they want a photo of me?” I’m never rude but I find it bizarre. I’m a quiet soul really.

'I love animals more than people. They don’t answer you back! I love dogs the most. But I can’t get one because of the hours I work.’

Lisa is close to her family, but because they live three and a half hours away in Lincolnshire, her weekends are spent alone, pottering at her quirky, vintage-themed Cheshire home.

‘My mum thinks I’m a bit of a hermit, because I don’t go out. I like doing my crafts, I like painting furniture and making things. I like my house to look like a theatre set – artistic and interesting.

Lisa George with her Dancing On Ice partner Tom Naylor (
Image:
Shutterstock)

'I’ve got a tiki bar in my garden, which I built, I’ve got a 1950s style bar in my conservatory, and my downstairs toilet is like a gentleman’s smoking room. I don’t like modern things, I was born in the wrong era, basically.'

For her 50th birthday, Lisa plans to travel to Vietnam and Cambodia. ‘I’m fascinated by that area, and the war, although the Vietnam war was futile and ridiculous.

‘I hate the ageing process, and I’ve been using anti-ageing creams since my 20s. But one thing better about getting older is that I think “Sod it” and I don’t care as much!

'It’s like that little voice inside me has got a bit louder, but it’s taken a long time to make that happen.’

We say, better late than never, Lisa! And best of luck on the ice, lass.

How do you spend your Sunday?

■ Up with the lark or a lie-in?

I wake up naturally at 5am, then I lie there and decide whether to get up and have a coffee or try and go back to sleep.

■ Full English or muesli?

I am obsessed with gluten-free porridge, made with lactose-free milk, and maybe some raisins and honey.

■ Newspapers or Netflix?

Netflix. I’m enjoying True Detective.

■ Gym or yoga?

I go to the gym twice a week to prepare for Dancing On Ice. I feel like I should start doing yoga, though.

■ Pub lunch or home-cooked roast?

I love making roast chicken, I am intolerant to beef. I can’t eat lamb because I have seen them being born and it feels wrong.

■ Chores or day of rest?

I will try and tootle around an antiques market, that would be my real treat.

Dancing on ice is on Sunday evenings, itv. Coronation street is on itv, weekdays.