| Doreen Corkhill | |||||||||||||||||
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| Brookside character | |||||||||||||||||
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| Portrayed by | Kate Fitzgerald | ||||||||||||||||
| Duration | 1985–1987, 1989–1990 | ||||||||||||||||
| First appearance | 27 August 1985 | ||||||||||||||||
| Last appearance | 14 September 1990 | ||||||||||||||||
| Classification | Former; regular | ||||||||||||||||
| Created by | Phil Redmond | ||||||||||||||||
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Doreen Corkhill is a fictional character from the British Channel 4 soap opera Brookside, played by Kate Fitzgerald. The character debuted on-screen during the episode broadcast on 27 August 1985. Doreen was introduced as part of the new Corkhill family consisting of herself, husband Billy (John McArdle) and their two children Tracy (Justine Kerrigan) and Rod (Jason Hope). Doreen was portrayed as the aspiring housewife who wants to buy her own home. Billy risks financial ruin to help Doreen get her ideal home on Brookside Close. She is characterised as competitive and wants to portray a positive family image to her neighbours. She is a shopaholic and over spender, a trait writers used to get the Corkhills into debt. Her behaviour causes her family many problems, Billy begins committing fraud and robberies to fund their lifestyle.
Fitzgerald decided to leave Brookside in 1987, citing exhaustion and issues with Doreen's characterisation. Writers created a dramatic exit story for her in which her marriage ends and abandons her children. In 1988, producers requested that Fitzgerald return to the show. She eventually agreed to a later invitation and Doreen returned in July 1989. Doreen's personality had been changed and she acknowledges that her earlier behaviour was wrong. She wants to resume her marriage, but Billy began a relationship with Sheila Grant (Sue Johnston) in her absence. The character was once again written out of the series following Doreen being unsuccessful in her aims to resume her marriage. Fitzgerald branded her departure a mistake and she believed that she had let real women like Doreen down. Television critics have praised Doreen's realism, Gareth McLean from The Guardian opined that Doreen and Billy were a true representation of the Liverpudlian "aspiring lower-middle-class". Matt Wolf from The Sacramento Bee stated that the Corkhills accurately portrayed the British working class.