In a dramatic change of role Casualty and Holby City actress Amanda Mealing is set to make her debut on ITV’s Coronation Street as a director

Amanda Mealing has swapped the hospital wards for the cobbles as she joins Coronation Street – but fans of the iconic soap won’t see her in the Rovers Return anytime soon.

The actress, who played Connie Beauchamp in BBC medical dramas Casualty and Holby City for an impressive 18 years, is reportedly joining the ITV show as a director.

According to The Sun, Amanda is directing a block of episodes for the longstanding soap and teased her role reversal last week when she revealed the Queen had visited her new place of work.

The monarch walked down Weatherfield’s famous cobbled streets last week as she took in the sights of the famous set.

Amanda tweeted: “Well, not often HRH herself pops in to my work! Ha!”

Despite fans pleading for more information from the former actress, Amanda remained tight-lipped on her reported new role.

Casualty’s Amanda Mealing to join Corrie as a director (Image: AmandaMealing/Instagram)
The Connie Beauchamp actress joined Casualty in 2014, having already played her in Holby City, and described the last 18 years as “the most remarkable privilege.”

During her stint, the actress had performed in some of the soap’s most powerful and hard-hitting plot lines – including the NHS’ response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Other plots have included car crashes, rescue missions, drug addiction, and have grappled with difficult topics like cancer and euthanasia.

Amanda played Connie Beauchamp for 18 years (Image: BBC)
She said: “It has been the most remarkable privilege to play Connie for the last 18 years.

“When she first hit our screens there were few female leads that weren’t ‘the wife of…’, ‘the mistress of…’ or needed ‘rescuing’.

“Most important for me is knowing that Connie has inspired so many women and young girls to seek careers, seek independence and strive to be their best.”

Amanda is set to make her Corrie debut in a complete role reversal (Image: AmandaMealing/Instagram)

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Amanda will no doubt want to continue her inspirational performance and if the recent storylines at Coronation Street are anything to go by she’ll have plenty of opportunity.

Viewers watched this week as character Ryan Connor awoke from a night of drinking and wasn’t sure whether he’d slept with Daisy Midgeley.

The barmaid, played by Charlotte Jordan, had been seen plying Ryan with an abundance of cocktails on Friday’s episode, before the last show of the week finished with her hand on his leg.

Corrie is full of hard-hitting storylines for Amanda to get her teeth into (Image: ITV)

Fast forward to Monday’s episode and Ryan could be seen lying in Daisy’s bed the following morning without his top.

It wasn’t clear though whether the pair engaged in a sexual act.

But the scene was enough to leave fans of the soap feeling uneasy about the whole situation with Daisy clearly taking advantage of Ryan in his drunken state.

One fan on Twitter said: “One said: “Ryan was too drunk to give consent & he did look uncomfortable when Daisy touched his leg in Fridays episode. Sex without consent is rape!”

Another penned: “They doing a rape story line with Ryan – hope he goes to the police and gets taken seriously.”