Maxim Magazine - January 2000

Alright! Alright! Calm Down!

Three times a week and a big performance on Saturday, Brookside bad girl Claire Sweeney (aka Lindsey Corkhill) knows how to get you to turn on.

You're a very attractive girl starring in a soap opera. Has Darren Day proposed to you yet?

All I can say is that our paths have never crossed.

Can you go out in Liverpool without blokes trying it on?

It's great in Liverpool because you never really get hassled that much. Everyone knows someone who works on Brookside, so it's not a big deal. If I'm out with my mates, blokes are forever coming up and asking if I've got a gun hidden in my handbag -- very original that. But if I'm out with my boyfriend they daren't approach me.

Your boyfriend's West Brom goalkeeper Alan Miller. Has he got a safe pair of hands?

Very funny. Yeah, he's very good with his hands and no, he never drops anything round the house. It's weird because I'm a massive Everton fan and I remember going to a game once where the opposition keeper was pulling off these great saves and I was really cursing him. Two weeks later I met Alan on a blind date and it turns out that he was the keeper I'd spent 90 minutes swearing at.

Do the crowd give him a lot of stick over you?

Oh yeah, they'll continually chant, 'Where's Barry Grant?' at him but he loves it. Then the opposition fans usually try to wind him up by singing, 'Lindsey Corkhill takes it up the arse.' I'm like, 'I wouldn't be so bloody sure about that!'

In Brookside, Lindsey's currently getting a lot of attention from an attractive lesbian. Are you going to end up dong a Beth and start snogging her?

I honestly don't know and I don't think they'd even tell me if that was on the cards. My mum's a big fan of the show so I thought it best to warn her about the possibility of me having to do a lesbian scene. She just said, 'Oh as long as she's pretty, you enjoy yourself.' I was completely gobsmacked. Then she phoned up about a week later and said, 'That new girl has got lovely piercing blue eyes. Is it her you've got to kiss? I hope so, she'd be very good for you.'

So who would be your ideal woman to snog?

Well I love Barbara Streisand. You can be quite attracted to the power and talent that someone like that has, but if you were going to make me snog one woman I'd have to go for Shania Twain. I lover her music and she looks fantastic as well.

Do you get any strange fan mail?

I get a lot of nice letters but there's always the occasional odd one. This bloke wrote in and said that he wanted to carry me on his shoulders for miles. He said he'd even do it for charity if I wanted. He didn't even have a particular cause in mind- it was obviously just an excuse to get my crotch on the back of his neck for as long as possible.

Do you actually watch other soaps?

Oh yeah, I'm a huge Eastenders fan. Some of their storylines have been sensational. I'd have loved to have played Cindy- Michelle Collins had a fantastic role. I've always been a Brookie fan, though. When I was away working on a cruise ship, my mum used to send me videos so I could keep up with what was going on.

You were a singer before you joined Brookside, so how come you weren't on Celebrity Stars In Their Eyes?

I actually was going to perform as Cilla Black on that show but I never got to appear because of some internal dispute. Last year, there was a storyline of Lindsey going on a fictional Stars In Their Eyes, impersonating Cher. But the original plan was for me to appear on the real show on the Saturday night as Lindsey Corkhill. I was going to tell Matthew Kelly that my name was Lindsey and I worked in a chippie, and whatever happened on the show- win or lose - that's what viewers would have seen on Brookside on the Monday. It was all set up but at the last moment Stars In Their Eyes backed out, so I think my withdrawal from the celebrity edition had something to do with that.

Can we expect you to do a Martine McCutcheon and launch a solo singing career?

I really admire Martine for how she's handled it - she's got it spot on - but I've got nothing planned at the moment. Singing was my first love though. For four years I traveled all over the world singing and dancing in my own cabaret show - I absolutely love it.

Any embarrassing moments?

The only embarrassing moment I've had singing was when I was 14. My mate and I really fancied these two dead cool lads who worked in a record shop. It was Valentines Day and for some reason we thought the best way to woo them would be to go into the shop and sing 'Stupid Cupid' in front of them. It was the most embarrassing moment of my whole life. We waltzed in, did this big song and dance number complete with all the actions and the lads just stared at us, waited till we got to the then then calmly pressed the panic button and got the security guards to drag us out. God, I'm going red just thinking about it. By rights I should have been scarred for life and never sung again.

Finally, a new survey reckons that dark-haired girls lag behind redheads and only have sex every other day, with it lasting only 19 minutes. Any comments?

So if I dyed my hair red, I'd be at it all the time then? Rubbish. Mind you, 19 minutes - that's not bad going, is it? Tell you what, next time I'm at it, I'll get my stopwatch out and let the Maxim readers know.