Audrey Roberts

Audrey Roberts (née Potter), played by Sue Nicholls, is one of the long running characters on the soap.

Storylines
A single mother, Audrey Potter originally had little interest in her daughter, Gail's life. She married local councillor Alf Roberts, in an episode on 23 December 1985, enjoying her social status as mayoress and believing herself to be better than the other Street residents. Over the years, Audrey mellowed from a social climber to a more sympathetic character. Audrey's other child, Stephen Reid, who lives in Canada. She has never been short of love interests, and has had romantic entanglements with Fred Elliott and undertaker Archie Shuttleworth, among others. Audrey's best friend was Alma Halliwell (played Amanda Barrie). Audrey was devastated when Alma died of cervical cancer in the year 2001.

Audrey nearly became a victim of her serial killer son-in-law Richard when he discovered she was worth a lot of money, inherited from Alf. He set fire to her house but she was rescued by Steve McDonald. In the October 2006 period, Audrey spoke to her close friend Fred Elliott, who was due to marry Bev Unwin later that week, and told him how she wished he was marrying her, not Bev. This caused Fred to have doubts about his decision but had seemingly decided upon marrying Bev. Audrey then told Ashley that she would not be coming to the wedding, which led to Fred borrowing Bev's car to visit her. After a heart-to-heart, Fred prepared to leave Audrey's house to get back to the church but collapsed in the hall and died. Audrey, accompanied by the police broke the news to Ashley and Claire at the church.

Audrey struck up a relationship with old friend Bill Webster, in an episode in late 2006. However, on an episode on Christmas Day, Bill's wife Maureen turned up, and the secret affair was revealed. Bill returned to Germany but came back to the street early in the yaer 2007 and rekindled his relationship with Audrey, and he subsequently moved in with her.

She currently owns and runs a hair salon and employs Maria Connor and Natasha. Previous employees include Sarah and David Platt. In the September 2007 period, Audrey took her grandson David into her home after he got kicked out by Gail. Son Stephen returned in the Christmas 2007 period to offer David a job in Italy. He accepted but Audrey found drugs in his drawer at the salon and Stephen withdrew his offer. Jason, Sarah and Bethany decided to go, but Jason left Bethany and Sarah at the train station. Eventually, Audrey grew fed up with David, especially after she learned he had pushed Gail down the stairs in a fit of rage. She was dumbfounded when Gail refused to press charges, and still has a reticent relationship with her grandson.

In spring 2008, Audrey was contacted by Ted Page, Gail's biological father who never knew of Gail's existence. Audrey met up with him and soon told him he had a daughter. He was surprised, and Audrey was very surprised herself to learn Ted was gay. This led characters such as David's girlfriend Tina to jokingly question whether or not Audrey had "turned" Ted gay, which he denied.

On 4 August 2008 Audrey was returning from a 'booze cruise' in France with Bill, Janice and Roger. She'd been miserable the whole time and felt Bill had ignored her. Bill had been drinking so Audrey insisted she drove. While driving, Audrey began having an argument with Janice, who accused her of being a fortune hunter and caring nothing about Alf or Fred. Audrey was furious, even more so when Bill chose not to defend her, instead saying she'd been unhappy the whole trip. The argument caused her to car off the road and through a small group of trees crashing into a grey box and Audrey suffered a hurt arm. It was this which caused her to consider ending her relationship with Bill, and she asked him to move out.