​Hull-born Debra Stephenson is back where it all started, showing off her remarkable talent for impressions on prime time TV. She takes time out from her hectic schedule to chat to Sue Mason . . .

Debra Stephenson pictured during a return visit to Hull to see her parents

Hull-born actress Debra Stephenson has always made a big impression. In prison drama Bad Girls she was the evil Shell Dockley and in Coronation Street she was the factory owner’s wife who ran off with his son.

But now, with her latest successful TV show, she’s literally making an impression . . . impersonating the likes of the nation’s current sweethearts, Cheryl Cole and Amanda Holden, as well as Aussie stars Dannii and Kylie Minogue.

With “The Impressions Show with Culshaw and Stephenson” – which is currently nearing the end of its Saturday night run on BBC1 – things have turned full circle for it was as a 14-year-old that Debra got her first big break, winning TV talent show Opportunity Knocks as an impressionist.

The fact that co-star, Jon Culshaw, also has Hull connections – he worked at Viking Radio for four years in the 1980s – is a pure coincidence.

“We didn’t know each other when Jon was in Hull and I didn’t find out until I’d known him a while that he had worked at Viking,” explains the blonde mother-of-two.

“He worked on Spitting Image and I did, too, but I only did it a couple of times when I was 15 or 16.”

It was in 2005 that the pair finally got to work together, on the BBC’s “Comic Relief Does Fame Academy”, in which Debra came fifth.

“We were filmed 24/7 and we had to stay over in a place with a girls’ dormitory and a boys’ dormitory,” she recalls. “As a team, we socialised and Jon and I started to do impressions, having a kick about.

“At that time, Lesley Garrett was one of the judges as was Richard Park and we used to ‘do’ them. I did a bit of Kylie, too.”

Debra with Bradley Walsh in Coronation Street

Although this was the first time they had actually worked together, Culshaw – renowned for his “The Doctor” on Dead Ringers – knew all about Debra’s talents.

“He had heard of me because there are not many girls who do impressions,” she says. “There’s only really Jan Raven and Ronni Ancona, so you tend to hear about the others. We said we must work together one day and Jon honoured this.

“I thought he was just being polite, but he got in touch with me after I left Coronation Street and asked if I’d like to do a show with him.”

On the Saturday night show, as well as Cheryl Cole, Amanda Holden, and the Minogue sisters, Debra has won acclaim impersonating presenters Fiona Bruce and Davina McCall. Debra has McCall’s overenthusiastic gesticulations off to a tee; her Cheryl is, arguably, gentler, and works very well with Culshaw’s Cowell.

“I like Cheryl, too, but a lot of people say they like Davina,” says Debra.

“When I was at school, I never took the mickey out of other kids or teachers. I’m not a natural mickey taker, I’m more of an actress who can do voices; I love accents and dialects. 

“Jon’s really interested in the voices and he likes to be cheeky.”

Antiques Roadshow presenter Fiona Bruce is portrayed eavesdropping on the valuations, and, when she learns about something valuable, pocketing it. A little unfair, perhaps?

“Some of the sketches we do are absurd,” says Debra. “With Fiona Bruce, we aren’t saying we think she’s a thief.”

Someone else who comes in for much lampoonery is portly presenter Eamonn Holmes. “If Eamonn took it the wrong way, we would be in trouble,” says Debra. “You have to think of it as a form of flattery. From our point of view, you have to be a bit cheeky, but I’d hate to offend anyone.

“We went on This Morning with Ruth and Eamonn and we ‘did’ them both, with them, and they were great about it. Eamonn is taking it in good humour.”

Debra as Davina McCall

She interrupts our chat briefly to speak about Peppa Pig to toddler daughter Zoe, aged three, who is feeling left out and in need of some attention. Son Max, nearly seven, is at school.

Although John Culshaw is an old hand and has had plenty of “real life” encounters with his subjects, for Debra, it has been a new experience.

“For me it was really exciting the first time but quite scary,” she says. “When we were on The One Show, we met Christine Blakley and she was so lovely and thrilled to bits (about Debra’s impression of her). We are cheeky about the show but not her. And apparently Davina McCall twittered or tweeted that she really liked it!”

Debra also transforms herself into property expert Kirstie Allsopp, although perhaps the visual effect is not as complete as she would like.

“I was a bit worried about Kirstie Allsopp because we didn’t manage to make her look as pretty as she is,” she reveals. “She has a button nose but mine is angular. The make-up artists are fantastic but they can’t make your nose smaller.”

So, has she given up acting or is she just taking a break?

“I don’t particularly prefer doing impressions to acting but this is one of the most enjoyable shows I’ve ever done,” she says. “I love singing, acting – straight or comedy – and voices. I don’t want to make as much money as possible but there is lots of fun to be had.

“I’ve done panto but not theatre, although I trained  in theatre.

“I haven’t given up acting – I love performing arts and  there are lots of genres, but I have a family to look after as well as to feed.”

Would she like to go back to Coronation Street, in which she played Frankie Baldwin for two-and-a-half years?

“I have no idea whether it would be a possibility to go back to Coronation Street or not but I’m happy with what I’m doing,” she says. “I spend all my days laughing,  not crying, like you can with heavy storylines.” 

London-based Debra gets back to Hull when she can, although that’s usually only four times a year.  “The last time we went, we took the kids to The Deep,” she says.  “We rarely  get to dine out in East Yorkshire because I love my mum’s cooking so much that we don’t really bother.

“I was a vegetarian for years but I got on the slippery slope. I started to eat fish when I was a student and chicken when I got together with my husband and then, after that, red meat.

“Are there any good vegetarian restaurants in Hull? The last time I ate out there was when a journalist took me to Cerrutti’s, which was great.

“We  don’t get back to Hull as often as we’d like but my mum and dad come to us regularly.”

And she is about to move even further away, to Dorset.

“It’s a long way but it’s so beautiful,” she says. “We fancied living abroad to get the holiday feel for a bit longer.

“We wanted that lifestyle. We live in quite a small house in an expensive part of London and we have swapped it for a big house with a big garden next to a sunny beach.

“It’s where you’d want to retire to but we thought, why wait?”