THE WITCH is back.

Just when they thought she had disappeared for good, leaving a trail of devastation in her wake, Theresa has returned to terrorise Shieldinch.

Theresa is of course one of River City’s greatest ever baddies, four feet nine inches of reconstructed primordial swamp.

Played to perfection by Maureen Carr, the granny drug dealer has been guilty of; gaslighting (and killing) poor Liz (Eileen McCallum)) stealing Bob/Angus’s baby (Stephen Purdon and Stephen Fletcher) and pulling a knife on sister Scarlett (Sally Howitt).

“She’s a misunderstood woman,” says Maureen of her character, laughing.

“She didn’t have the best upbringing at the hands of Molly (Una McLean).

“And she does have some hang-ups Of course, she resents Scarlett and Bob’s relationships.

“But she does have a heart.”

Does she, Maureen? Really?

“It’s well hidden of course,” she says, laughing. “But I think there’s a heart in there somewhere.

“And you have to remember, she’s been to prison. That can really affect someone.”

Is there anyone in this Shieldinch family who hasn’t been to jail? Theresa, Molly, Stevie . . .

“That’s true,” says the actress, smiling.

One of the reason’s River City’s Theresa character has worked so well over the years is that she’s not entirely one dimensional.

A baddie can’t be all bad. Theresa may have shoved Kim (Frances Thorburn) in front of a police car and caused a brain injury, but she’d have picked Madonna up from school if you asked her to.

“And there’s a scene coming up in which we get to see a softer side to her.

“But it’s true she thinks everyone else is to blame for her problems.”

It’s not hard to look too far to see real-life examples of this, such as TV cleaner Kim Woodburn’s excoriation of Coleen Nolan on Loose Women?

“Oh, yes I saw the clip of that,” she smiles.

“You could say Theresa is the Kim of Shieldinch.”

Maureen Carr loves playing the character who loves her grandchildren, but loves to hate.

“I love playing the baddie,” she says, in delighted voice.

“And she does get a lot attention. When I’m in Morrison’s I get people asking for selfies, but there have also been some really angry people saying ‘I hate what you’re doing to Scarlett.’

“It shows how involved they are with the programme. And Theresa is such great fun to play.”

She laughs; “How can she not be when every week she’s either poisoning people or throwing them under a car.”

It seems this is the role Mauren has been waiting for all her acting life, since she first trod the boards with the Kirkie Players in local am dram, playing Snow White, (in which the dwarfs were all bigger than her.)

From Scottish Youth Theatre in 1979, she moved onto Perth Rep.

Along the way, Maureen has appeared in theatre classic John Brown’s Body at the Tramway, Tartuffe at the Lyceum and she has played Dolly in the Steamie.

She has also been a Still Game favourite.

“I’ve never played the lead roles, I’ve always had the character roles, playing the working class roles,” says the actress.

Maureen is one of the women behind female comedy collective Witsherface.

“It’s a group of around 40 of us, actors, directors, editors, who all do comedy,” she says. “The concept (sketches and sitcoms) is being developed as a series of podcasts at the moment, and we’re in development talks with television at the moment.”

She adds; “It’s something I’m really excited about.”

Maureen will be back in panto this year, appearing in this year’s Oran Mor panto, The Lying Bitch and the Wardrobe.

“I’ll be playing a baddie,” she says, not surprisingly at all.

But the role she’s focused on at the moment is Theresa, little Lucifer in a Primark skirt.

And we’ll have to watch River City this week to find out what happens to this quite amazing character.

Now that the portacabin has blown up, and those around blasted into the air, will Theresa be carted off to jail?

Or will we find her on the roof of the Tall Ship yelling out “Top of the world, ma!” . . .

Just before she’s hit by a Police Scotland sniper’s bullet and her rubble dust cov body plummets to the cobbles below, narrowly missing Bubba’s pram by inches.

“You’ll have to wait and see,” she says grinning.

River City, Tuesday, BBC1 1 Scotland, 8pm.