IT WAS THE programme that nearly never was. In the latter months of 1960, few in Granada Television believed Coronation Street, the brainchild of Tony Warren, would work. Even fewer thought it would last, writes MARK HENNESSY.London Editor
Within months it was a favourite of 20 million viewers twice a week. Five decades on, the programme can, despite the multitude of TV channels now filling the airwaves, hold the attention of 10 million in the UK alone.
Warren’s creation was born on a late-night train journey back to Manchester, as BBC producer Olive Shapley later recalled: “At about Crewe, after a long period of silence, Tony suddenly woke me up saying, ‘Olive, I’ve got this wonderful idea for a television series. I can see a little back street in Salford, with a pub at one end and a shop at the other, and all the lives of the people there, just ordinary things and . . .’”
Shapley looked at him blearily and said: “Oh, Tony, how boring! Go back to sleep.”
Many others doubted Warren’s judgment until, that was, its first broadcast on the ITV network on December 9th, 1960, when the grimy terrace streets in Salford that formed the backdrop to the series’ opening credits came on screen, revolutionising British television and helping to fuel the confidence of the north of England that was culturally so important in the 1960s.
William Roache, now 78, better-known as Ken Barlow, has been there from the beginning, and in recent weeks has been on set into the early hours of the morning as the Coronation Streetcast films the train crash episodes that will dominate its 50th anniversary next month.
"I am lucky to be in work, particularly in the current climate and lucky that the work in Coronation Streethas been so interesting and that it gives so much joy to people, particularly the elderly," he says.
Roache is now listed in the Guinness Book of Recordsas the longest-surviving actor in a drama series. "It is lovely that that has happened. It was never a lifetime ambition, though. It was just something that happened along the way. I never thought that it would last this long – nobody did."
Roache featured in Coronation Street's most famous chapter, at least for those now in their 40s and over: the affair between Ken's wife Deirdre and Mike Baldwin, which ran between late 1982 and early 1983. Deirdre's reconciliation with Ken became a national story; even Manchester United put the news, "Ken and Deirdre Reunited" on the scoreboard at Old Trafford during a match with Arsenal.
“It had the most powerful impact on people. It was after that that the tabloids realised the power of the soaps and started putting staff to write full-time about them,” says Roache.
Sometimes, real life and soap opera have become uncomfortably close, particularly earlier this year when Maggie Jones, who played Deirdre’s mother Blanche Hunt, died unexpectedly, leaving the cast to film a memorial service for the character just hours before they went to one for the actor.
During the past decade, characters have cheated and lied, married, died, had affairs and seen their businesses collapse, justifying Tony Warren’s description of the programme as “a distortion of reality, not a reflection”.
Nevertheless, it has reflected, and sometimes led, social change in the UK. Research carried out in 2005, pointing to the effect of condom advice given on the show, illustrated that television is a more powerful source of advice about sex for young people than parents or teachers.
While sexuality is no longer taboo, politics is, and nearly always has been, bar the character of independent councillor Alf Roberts (Brian Mosley), and, subsequently, his wife Audrey (Sue Nicholls) after she took over his seat on Weatherfield's fictional council. In 2007, research by Prof Stephen Coleman of Leeds University showed that all British soaps – not just Coronation Street– steered well clear of politics, and not just because plots are filmed up to six weeks in advance.
"Every other aspect of daily life – work, sex, drinking and gossip – is dramatised and open for debate, but soap producers seem to regard politics as a danger zone to be avoided," said Prof Coleman, who interviewed scores of producers and scriptwriters. "In the words of Steve Frost, producer of Coronation Street: 'Immediately we start espousing certain opinions of political values, we're alienating, or at least putting off, a certain percentage of the viewers.'"
But politicians have not been able to ignore Coronation Streetif they are to show that they are in touch with the popular mood, as happened in 1998 when Deirdre Barlow, by then Deirdre Rachid, was sent to jail for a crime she did not commit. Recognising that it had tapped a rich seam, Granada Television started a campaign to "free the Weatherfield One", backed by then prime minister Tony Blair, if, admittedly, with a degree of irony on Blair's part that might not have been understood by all of the show's legions of fans. In 2005, Blair visited the set of the Rover's Return at Granada studios near Manchester city centre.
In its early years, Coronation Streethad just 15 characters. "There are about 60 people in the cast now, but you could never get them together for a cast photo, so there isn't that kind of cast unity anymore. There are too many people involved," says William Roache. "The show has changed dramatically over the years. It would have become a dinosaur if we had stayed the way that we were at the beginning. The producers have to move it forward, sexually and every other way. Sometimes people will be offended. If you take it too fast you will offend people and if you don't you will not get the new viewers. But the ship has been safely steered.
“Now, we don’t do any rehearsals,” he says. “You go on the set to do a quiet words run-through, and the directors give the various commands. You can be in and out in 10 minutes after doing three or four pages of script. We had people in from the US recently and they were absolutely amazed. They could not get over the pace at which we work.”
"We hear stories about what it was like in years gone by, but we often don't see each other for weeks, if not months," says Jennie McAlpine, the 26-year-old actor whose grandparents came from Sligo and Kerry and who plays the role of Fiz Stape. Now living just minutes from the film set, McAlpine is a fan of Coronation Street, not just an actor in it. "The common theme down the years is that people like watching people who are like them. The best thing about it is that – while, of course, I want people to watch it all the time – it is a show that can be dipped into over the years. It is still part of so many families' lives. We always watch it in our house on Christmas Day."
On or around its 50th anniversary on December 9th, four characters are to be “killed off” in the programme when a tram veers off the viaduct and crashes onto the cobbles below, badly damaging the Kabin and Alahan’s corner shop.
So far, producers have remained tight-lipped about who will be departing, though rumours suggest that Rita Sullivan, played by 77-year-old Barbara Knox, and Norris Cole, played by Malcolm Hebden, aged 70, are missing after the crash.
Meanwhile, Steve McDonald, played by Simon Gregson, a veteran of the show even though he is only 33, is buried under the rubble, while Sunita Alahan, played by Shobna Gulati, 44, is left fighting for her life after she is trapped.
“I am not sure that everyone knows if they will have a job in the New Year,” says McAlpine, “We all know that there will be casualties. I’m not all right about it, but it is exciting, even if you are the one who is in jeopardy.”
Through its lifetime, Coronation Streethas fought off competition and broken new ground by producing more and more episodes every week, but also retained viewers' interest, all the while becoming one of television's biggest worldwide syndications. In Ireland, it is TV3's most-watched programme, with 365,000 viewers.
First broadcast in Ireland in 1978 by RTÉ using episodes made in 1976, the series was brought up to date in 1983, before it was lost to TV3 in 2001 when Granada bought a stake in the independent channel.
Today, it is broadcast in Australia, Belgium, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, while it has spawned a German copy, Lindenstrasse, which has tackled subjects such as racism, cancer, Aids, Alzheimer’s disease and disabilities, along with showing Germany’s first prime-time gay kiss in 1990.
Popular with viewers, Coronation Streetbecame vital for advertisers. Allan Rich, a 45-year veteran of the UK's advertising industry, remembers the days when it and Sunday Night at the Palladiumwere TV's biggest draws. "You simply had to be on it and slots were not easy to get."
Back then, however, clients could not be sure that their adverts were going to get on air until the very last minute: “My heart was going to be in my mouth at six o’clock that I wasn’t going to lose out,” he says.
Nevertheless, Coronation Streetin its infant years, while it made tens of millions for Granada TV, could have made even more because slots were sold according to the rate card set by the Tam ratings, rather than being auctioned to the highest bidder.
In the years since, the industry has changed and Coronation Streetis now less influential than it was, as advertisers seek to target their message to ever-smaller segments of the audience, or follow Coronation Street's latter-day blockbuster equivalent, The X-Factor.
“It is still a very powerful commodity to my generation, but my generation grew up with it. But in the modern world, common sense tells me that teenagers and those who are now in their 20s are likely to be less loyal,” says Rich.
For Tony Warren, who is still involved 50 years on as a consultant, the show that was nearly never made has become the centrepiece of his life, bringing with it lifetime achievement awards and attention, sometimes unwelcome.
However, Warren, now 74, is philosophical about the tabloids’ interest: “That comes with the territory. You expect that sort of thing. My attitude is that I did not come into showbusiness to pass unnoticed.”
The view from home
MAEVE BINCHY Author
In the 1960s my mother and I would watch Coronation Streethappily and discuss the characters as if they were real. Nothing much has changed in the Street: the cobble stones are there, Ken Barlow is still there and the Rovers Return is certainly there.
I always found it odd that my mother accepted totally the three old ladies having their milk stout in the snug over 45 years ago but didn’t think that a woman should go into any of the many pubs in Dalkey. Things have certainly changed in that area.
I look around me in south Dublin wondering if everyone in every shop and business has had an affair or at least a one-night stand with almost everyone else in the neighbourhood. It seems unlikely but then maybe they have, and, as always, I’m the last to know. I was hugely proud to be mentioned in it a few times. On the last occasion Blanche, who was Deirdre’s terrifying mother, died and left in her will her collection of my books to Ken Barlow, who received them with huge horror and disdain. But I didn’t care. I was in Corrie myself – would my mother have been astounded?
TOM DUNNE Broadcaster
I was made watch it when I was growing up and I wasn’t happy about it, but eventually it became reassuring when you heard the music at 7.30pm. It was like a warm cup of tea. The writing is great and it has a lovely charm and strong, developed characters who are often left in fantastic dilemmas. If you’ve missed it for a while, it’s easy to pick up on what’s going on.
I think my favourite TV character passed away last week, Jack Duckworth. They made the scene very noisy and as he stood on the street looking around him, there was a sense of the world passing him by. He hadn't the energy for it any more. It was very poignant and very well done. I don't think it's ever going to be cool to like Coronation Street. I'd hide it from my closest friends. It's like a guilty pleasure.
ROSEMARY QUINN A fan since episode one
When the first episode of Coronation Streetaired I was in north-east England in my first year of teacher training college. We went to the common room to watch it and it was packed with people sitting on tables and chairs and standing along the wall. It was in black-and-white and we were watching it through a sort of fog because of all the people smoking.
It was the first northern soap and everyone was absolutely thrilled. We hadn’t heard many northern voices on TV before. The characters aways seemed to put the kettle on when there was a crisis and Ena Sharples sat in the snug with her friends because in those days it wasn’t acceptable for a woman to go into a pub unaccompanied. They were like a Greek chorus, watching and commenting on everyone.
There is a much younger element now but it has more or less the same formula. You’ve still got the Rovers Return and the corner shop, the character like Ena Sharples who comments on the social life of the street which was played in recent years by Blanche, then there’s the blousy woman like Elsie Tanner – now Liz McDonald – and the fussy little man like Norris.
IVAN YATES Broadcaster
It’s the one soap I’ve watched avidly, as long as it’s been on Irish TV. I’m very perturbed my old favourites like Blanche, Vera and Jack are all gone. I loved the acerbic Blanche and her withering remarks. She was plain outrageous. I like the way the writers create a secret, like Kevin being the father of Molly’s child or someone having an illicit affair, and you think it’s all going to come out and it doesn’t, and then at the worst possible moment it all explodes.
I wouldn’t mind if they wrote some of the dry old prunes out, like Emily or that other woman in the pub that makes the hot pots. And, as for fish-face Gail, I can’t stand her at all. She’s such a misery guts and that son of hers David definitely has the same DNA – he’s always attracting trouble.
Its appeal is that it’s real, like The Riordans was. It had a resonance with people’s everyday lives and the scrapes and situations they get into.
NEIMH McGLYNN Student
I have been a Corrie fan for as long as I can remember. It all started when I was young. It was one of my mother’s favourite soaps. A lot of people I go to college with watch it. I think the reason that I like it so much is it’s so dramatic. They are always following some crazy storyline like Gail marrying murderer Richard Hillman and Tony Gordon hiring someone to kill Liam Connors. One of my favourite characters would have to be Gail. There is always something crazy going on in her life and she somehow always gets the blame for it. Poor Gail.
STEPHEN DIXON Journalist and artist
I come from Manchester, so Coronation Streetis part of what I am. When I was a student I worked as an extra on the show a few times, and after I moved to Ireland I kept watching, mostly to hear the reassuring voices of my childhood.
The plots have become increasingly preposterous, but the essential truth of the characters remains intact: I remember aunties, uncles and family friends like Eileen, Rita, Norris, Jack and Vera, Kevin and Sally. I was sorry when Les Battersby was written out – I supped many a pint with the likes of him.
The comedy scenes can be as funny as anything on television. Twenty years ago some of the funniest older characters were played by veteran stand-up comedians such as Bill Waddington (Percy Sugden) and Jill Summers (Phyllis Pierce), who brought to their roles the skill and timing acquired in a lifetime of working the northern clubs, but that tradition died with them. I think Coronation Streethas an integrity you don't find in other soaps, and I hope it goes on for ever.
– In conversation with Edel Morgan
