As dizzy barmaid Raquel Wolstenhulme, she lit up the Rovers Return, offering friendly advice and pearls of wisdom as she pulled pints of Newton and Ridleys without chipping a perfectly-manicured nail. But Raquel’s trademark mini skirts and stilettoes are a thing of the past for actress Sarah Lancashire. Her latest role sees her in a drab maidservant’s dress, her hair scraped back underneath a plain bonnet. Sarah is playing Nelly Dean, housekeeper to the Earnshaw family in a new TV adaptation of Wuthering Heights. She stars opposite Tom Hardy as Heathcliff, Charlotte Riley as Cathy, Andrew Lincoln as Edgar Linton and Kevin McNally as Mr Earnshaw in the much-anticipated two-part series, heading up this weekend’s bank holiday TV schedule. Nelly is the eyes and ears of both Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, where she goes to live after Cathy marries. The old housemaid watches over everyone and is a voice of guidance and counsel to the motherless children she raises, particularly Cathy.

Nelly plays an important narrative role, with much of the story unfolding through her recollections and letters as she takes us on a journey into the tragic past of the Heights.

Sarah was familiar with the story thanks to the most famous film adaptation of Wuthering Heights.

“I’d seen the 1939 film starring Laurence Olivier and knew the book so I was aware of the characters, in particular Heathcliff and Cathy as they’re at the forefront of this story,” she says, adding that she referred to the book during filming.

“Wuthering Heights is such an epic story, brilliantly engineered by (screenwriter) Peter Bowker and condensed for two 90-minute films. To ensure the full context of the story was correct, I needed to look at the narrative of the book.”

Other interpretations of Emily Bronte’s classic novel have tended to focus on the stormy relationship between Cathy and Heathcliff and the tragic love story that ensues, with not much happening after Cathy’s demise. But Bowker has brought the later phase of the book into focus; introducing the children of Cathy, Heathcliff and Cathy’s brother Hindley, and their interweaving relationships.

“I thought the drama was perfectly executed and beautifully written by Peter,” says Sarah. “I’d worked with the director, Coky Giedroyc, before on Oliver Twist. She is undoubtedly one of our finest directors and I really wanted another opportunity to work with her again.

“In some of the previous adaptations (of Wuthering Heights) they don’t follow the second generation but we do in Peter’s, and I really liked the fact he had included this within his scripts.”

Sarah, 44, describes Nelly as the go-between for Cathy and Heathcliff. “She feels terribly protective of them. What we don’t see in our adaptation, but is written in the book, is that Nelly grew up with Cathy. It was Nelly’s mother who was in service at Wuthering Heights, so the two of them almost have a sibling relationship separated by their status.

“Nelly also raised Heathcliff so she has maternal feelings towards them both. Nelly’s life is undoubtedly Cathy, because she herself has never married or had children of her own. She’s very much a woman in service bound to the family.”

Despite her role as carer, Sarah says Nelly is helpless when it comes to Cathy and Heathcliff’s relationship.

“I don’t think Nelly has any influence or control over how they feel for each other,” she says. “Brutally bound by her status in life, Nelly is incapable of intervening to prevent their relationship. All she can do is stand back from it all.”

Wuthering Heights was filmed last year in areas of West Yorkshire, on vast areas of moorland and stone-built manor houses including East Riddlesden Hall, near Keighley, and Oakwell Hall at Birstall. Did the rugged Yorkshire landscape help Sarah identify with the story?

“The landscape is another character in its own right and there’s nothing else quite like it,” she says. “It can look incredibly beautiful, but then in a matter of hours be very bleak, which in a way reflects Heathcliff and Cathy’s relationship.”

Oldham-born mother-of-three Sarah is that rarity in a former soap actress; like Sue Johnston and Anna Friel, she went on to build a successful acting career without falling back on celebrity ballroom dancing, bug-eating, ice-skating or yet another long-running role in a medical or cop drama.

The daughter of TV scriptwriter Geoffrey Lancashire, who wrote episodes of Coronation Street, Sarah played Raquel from 1991 to 1996 and became one of the soap’s best-loved characters. Since leaving Coronation Street, Sarah has shed the image of dippy Raquel to play a variety of roles, mainly strong, inspiring women.

She played actress and care home founder Coral Atkins in the drama Seeing Red and starred in acclaimed dramas Clocking Off and Rose And Maloney, and psychological thriller The Cry, and last year she starred in BBC1’s choir-based drama All The Small Things.

She even cropped up as a Doctor Who villain, an evil businesswoman in power suit and shoulder pads.

In the West End, she starred in Guys And Dolls, and her directorial debut in an episode of The Afternoon Play earned her a Best New Director Bafta.

Sarah has worked alongside some top British talent and is full of praise for the impressive cast of Wuthering Heights.

“It’s a tremendous cast, I feel very privileged to have worked with them all on such a wonderful adaptation,” she says. “In my opinion, Tom Hardy and Charlotte Riley are sensational as Heathcliff and Cathy.”