Granada
Television's flagship long running TV show, Coronation Street,
affectionately known simply as "Corrie", was first transmitted
on Friday 9th December 1960 with an expected six weeks run.
It
was envisaged and created by novelist Tony Warren as a short drama
serial based on everyday life in a fictitious Manchester suburb
called Weatherfield, populated by various stereotypical characters,
and set in the then rather dour back-to-back terraced streets
of a less prosperous northern city.
Apart
from a dozen or so family houses, it was to have a corner shop,
a newsagents, a factory where several of its key characters worked,
and a public house, "The Rovers Return".
The
latter was to become the focus of much of the social interchange.
It had a fictitious brewery (Newton & Ridleys) and regular
characters had their own seats and favourite corners.
Needless
to say, the series was an instant success and still ranks amongst
the UK's highest viewing figures over 40 years later, achieving
some 18 million viewers at its peak, and many more on a worldwide
bases, where it is now dubbed into many dozens of languages and
shown throughout every continent on the globe.
At
first, it was not received well by all critics, though personages
no less than the late Poet Laureate, John Betjeman were avid fans,
who compared the series with Dickens' "Pickwick Papers"
in the scope and range of its storylines and characterisations.
So
'ordinary' and 'real' is the series thought to be that Manchester
taxi drivers are still regularly asked by visitors to take them
to Weatherfield, believing it to be an actual suburb of the City.
Similarly, many a visitor has asked for a pint of Newton &
Ridley's beer, believing it to be real brew.
The
show has has attracted a whole generation of writers and authors
to create its storylines, and a veritable cavalcade of stars of
film, theatre and television have trodden its cobbled street.
Notable
scriptwriters like Jack Rosenthal, John Stevenson, Julian Roach
and Tom Elliot have penned episodes. A
ctors
like Pete Postlethwaite, Jean Alexander and Sarah Lancashire have
begun their careers acting in the series, and other appearances
on the show have included the likes of Bernard Cribbins, John
Savident, Maureen Lipton, Brigit Forsyth, Roy Hudd, Sherrie Hewson,
Geoffrey Hughes and Joanna Lumley. But it is the long standing
stalwarts of the show whose names will be indelibly linked with
Coronation Street - Violet Carson (Ena Sharples), Pat Pheonix
(Elsie Tanner), William Roach (Ken Barlow), Jean Alexander (Hilda
Ogden), Thelma Barlow (Mavis Wilton), Julie Goodyear (Bette Gilroy),
Liz Dawn (Vera Duckworth), and many others too numerous to name
here.
For
a full(-ish) cast list see the 'Coronation Street Characters'
link below.
