THIS is turning into a good year for Julie Goodyear, the home-coming soap queen of Coronation Street. The announcement of her latest re-crowning after several months of will-she-won't-she tabloid speculation, coincides with Julie touring in the chic, fragrant role of St Tropez restaurateur Jacqueline in the gay comedy La Cage Aux Folles, her first musical and her first national tour at 59. How apt that her big number is The Best Of Times Is Now.

On the road since early January, Julie will perform for the first time in York - "I have shopped there, and it's gorgeous", she says - next week at the Grand Opera House. Already she has paid a publicity visit, with personal assistant Vicky by her side as ever, and make-up magic at the ready. Leopardskin scarf, theatrical cigarette holder, lean legs and Hollywood blonde finish were reassuringly present too.

Make-up wand waved, it was time for photos behind the bar, beer pump logos covered up with La Cage flyers to keep Corrie happy. Then introductions: a kiss, a hug and words of praise for journalistic sensitivity, reminiscent of her friend Jack Tinker, the Daily Mail's late theatre critic, in our earlier interview. Here was Goodyear, good mood, and none of the alleged prima donna behaviour that a Sunday paper had tut-tutted about last weekend.

"They say you should never go back..." went the opening question on the Corrie comeback. Julie smiled. "It's back to the future for me. It's a tremendous compliment to be invited back by a company you've worked with for 25 years," she said.

"You feel you must have got something right and I'm a great believer in not slamming doors on places or people. It's always nice to leave with dignity, which I did."

She had left Weatherfield's cobbles in September 1995, an exit as memorable as Margaret Thatcher's final departure from Downing Street, only this time the moist eyes belonged to the TV millions and not the back-stabbed former Prime Minister.

Like Baroness Thatcher, Julie felt "there was unfinished business", business she will pick up from May when she returns to the Granada studios in Manchester, although she says no storylines are set in concrete.

"No, not yet, but I have and always have had a tremendous faith and trust in the writers. In all the years I've worked for them they have never short- changed Bet and I've no reason to think it will be any different now - and I've had a beautiful Welcome Home card from Tony Warren the series creator - it's lovely to have that feeling."

Storylines may be under wraps but Julie did indicate why Bet Gilroy was back at a time when Coronation Street has fallen behind EastEnders in the soap ratings.

"I don't think I'll have to fight for it but I've always had a strong belief in comedy - and they need it right now," she said, a meaningful drag on her cigarette emphasising her point.

She was being playful, enjoying the guessing games of what will happen to Bet, declining to say whether she would be back pulling pints and scoring points at the Rovers Return Inn, or whether Bet was bound for pastures different.

"I think we'll leave that to the public. Let them decide. I trust them," said Julie.

The big financial question, the one about The Sun story alleging vexatious contract negotiations, could wait no longer.

Was there any truth in... the question was cut short, as Julie's eyes narrowed for the only time.

"I have never discussed my salary." A word of advice was on its way, dispensed Bet-style. "There are a couple of things you don't ask a lady. Her age and her salary." The smile returned, and thoughts turned again to performing as Bet.

"I like the early morning scenes. The first fag, the first cup of tea. Those scenes are so real, and to me that's what the viewers can identify with," she said.

Without prompting, a rainbow of positive thoughts came out.

"For the past six years I've had a ball doing ordinary things that probably other people take for granted.

"I've just been me, doing my shopping. I like cooking. I like entertaining. I have three lovely grandchildren.

"I make wonderful damson jam. I've renovated this wonderful farmhouse myself, still in the same place I was born, Heywood. I've had a lovely time... I'm in touch with nature," she says. "I'm a country person at heart. I'm not a city person. Never have been.

"I need green, whereas Tony Warren says if he runs out of pavement, he runs out of life."

Happiness is... life on the detached farm, with her 15 waif-and-stray horses and her 30 acres. So much so, at the earlier interview, on the phone to the farmhouse, she had wondered whether she truly wanted to return to television work and more episodes a week than ever.

"Natural daylight is wonderful," she mused. "When filming, I would never know if it was day or night."

Yet now she is resolved. "Maybe we look for signs. When Bet left Coronation Street, she had those bird cages and she said au revoir, not goodbye. All of a sudden, here we are, La Cage Aux Folles, The Bird Cage again. It's just meant to be," she says.

How will Julie feel on her first day back in front of the cameras? She pauses, not for effect, but to mull over the prospect. "I hope I can still do it... and I'm hoping that the rest of the cast will be kind to me. I'll try and keep up with them. I'll do my best."

The best of Bet was often the best of Coronation Street, and she knows it.

She wants her crown back.

For proof, consider her answer to whether aura or talent had been more important in her career: "Both, but you've forgotten staying power."

Julie Goodyear is appearing in La Cage Aux Folles, Grand Opera House, York, February 12 to 16. Box office: 01904 671818.

Updated: 11:01 Friday, February 08, 2002