CORRIE favourite Jennie McAlpine credits her Peter Kay-mentored comedy style with helping her land a role in the world’s longest-running soap.

While she is instantly recognisable as Fiz Stape in the ITV show, it was as a teenager that Jennie entered a number of young comedian competitions.

At one of them, she met comedian Peter, and it was her comic timing which impressed Corrie bosses, helping to land her a long-term contract at the age of 17.

She said: “I entered this competition for a young comedian. I think (Peter Kay) sort-of judged it.

He put me through, which he has never really let me forget. He was kind of a mentor.

“It was a long time ago. He was very popular but he was kind-of at the start of his fame.

“I think it’s nice when people are local to you. You can look up to them in a different way because it feels like they’re from down the road and they’ve done it and you can do it – someone from round the corner and they speak like you.”

Now the soap star is turning her hand to turning the decks as she swaps the Corrie cobbles for the DJ booth at Heaton Park Sports and Social Bar, Bury Old Road, Prestwich, for the next instalment of popular club night Bop Local.

The Easter Saturday event will see 30-year-old Jennie return to the decks after a stint at Bop Local in Chorlton last summer.

Jennie, who was born and bred in Bury, said: “It was a laugh. This is like my little tour of Manchester. We’re bringing it North.”

Bop Local gives people the chance to enjoy a fun night out, with great music but without having to spend a small fortune on drinks and taxis into the city centre.

The former St Gabriel’s RC High School pupil said: “It’s such a great concept. It’s like nightclub meets Christening buffet. It’s Easter weekend, I’m hoping there will be some Easter eggs. It’ll be good fun.

“I love my Manchester bands, there will definitely be that in there. I think I will be allowed to play a bit of pop. A bit of Kylie segued into The Stone Roses is perfect.”

When Jennie is not playing DJ, she is a regular on the nation’s favourite soap, having played Fiz since 2001.

In recent months, production of the show has moved from its 53- year-old base at Granada Studios to a new 7.7 acre site at Media City, Salford Quays, the subject of recent documentary, Coronation Street: a Moving Story which featured cast members past and present and Tony Warren, the show’s creator.

Jennie, who lives in Manchester city centre, said: “They have built this amazing new place.

“It’s been purpose-built for us. Tony Warren was on the documentary.

“We are so lucky that he is still here and still part of the furniture really. I saw him the other week, he was looking round.

“It’s amazing really. He created this, this is him. It wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him. He’s still very much part of it.”

Away from Corrie, Jennie runs a restaurant with her partner, Chris Farr — Annies, Old Bank Street, Manchester.

She said: “We’ve been open a year. It’s called Annies because it’s just off St Ann’s Square but also, hopefully, because of the kind of place it is — it’s a real home from home, traditional food that perhaps your grandma, or if you were lucky enough to have an auntie Annie, cooked.

“Cottage pie, Lancashire hotpot, home-cooked chips. I get a few of the Corrie lot in there.”

Jennie began honing her acting skills at Bury Parish Players followed by Carol Godby’s Theatre Workshop and appeared on stage at The Met in Bury.

And while she admits she would like to tread the boards herself one day, following in the footsteps of former co-stars Julie Hesmondhalgh and Suranne Jones, she is more than happy on the Street, with storylines featuring drama and tears over the summer with on-screen partner Tyrone Dobbs, played by Walkden’s Alan Halsall.

She said: “I love Corrie. I really, genuinely, can’t see a world without Coronation Street.”