I gave up watching about five years back and aside from a brief RIP for Norris (the character, not the actor who played him), I’ve barely thought about the show since.
Count James Moriarty’s patently ludicrous comment that the show “was always pants” set me thinking back to the times when the weekly events on the cobbles were pretty much essential viewing. Below, I’ve posted a few thoughts any Corriphiles (and Corriphobes – the AW is nothing if not exclusive) are warmly welcome to add to.
FAVOURITE ERA
For me, it would be the memories of sitting down and watching the show with my Mum, Dad and sister during the show’s 60s and 70s twice weekly peak. The fact that there were only two.three channels back then meant it was pretty much the most watched show in the UK. Solidly rooted in real life and often very, very funny, it deserved the ratings, too.
FAVOURITE CHARACTER
Too many – If pushed probably Stan and Hilda Ogden and Eddie Yates
THINGS THAT ONLY HAPPEN IN CORRIE BUT NOT IN REAL LIFE
The last time I watched on a fairly regular basis (from about 2013 to 2016), it always used to amuse me greatly how characters would ring the police on the flimsiest excuse and there’d be two officers around before the commercial break.
There was also the fact that in an almost Truman Show like meta twist, Street residents’ memories were wiped clean every three or so months, and their phones and emails stopped working whenever they went away on holiday for a few weeks
DO YOU STILL TUNE IN? IF SO WHAT KEEPS YOU WATCHING? IF NOT, WHAT MADE YOU STOP?
After I left the UK in the early 80s, I lost touch with the show for a few years as there was nowhere I lived that showed it.
Did make brief returns to the fold in the late 90s and again after moving to Ireland eight years back but the constant upping of the show’s broadcast schedule and the resultant increased reliance on ever more absurd plots meant it was past saving.
As recently as the noughties we had the immortal Blanche.
This is a very vague memory but I think Blanche dates back to the 70s as a character, when Deidre first appeared. She didn’t have so many memorable lines back then though.
She did start in the 70s then had about 15-20 years off screen I think
Effectively the Vashti Bunyan of Wetherfield.
Maud and Maureen talking about the flasher on the Red Rec. Maud clearly wanted to know what was visible, but couldn’t ask directly. Eventually she said, ‘What I want to know is: did he have his hat on straight?’ – I laughed for longer than I ever had for a comedy program. The timing and the language, you just don’t get that anywhere else really.
I also recall Reg and Curly having a blazing row, screaming in each other’s faces, and then suddenly calming down and Curly asking Reg ‘so, what’s the new flat like?’ ‘oh, terrible, you can’t swing a cat around’.
WHO DO WE WANT?
Anarchy! Chaos! Stanley Ogden!
Deirdrie’s A Slag!
I used to love it in the 70s and 80s. So many briliiant characters (just the names alone were brilliant- Albert Tatlock, Ena Sharples, Elsie Tanner, Stanley Ogden, Bet Lynch etc). Rita and Mavis chatting in the cornershop was frequently a joy.
When I first moved abroad I used to catch up on Corrie and Eastenders on my home visits in the summer. I found Eastenders was easy to catch up with, as after a year’s abscence nothing much changed. But with Corrie I increasingly found new young characters I didn’t know or care about and I gradually lost all interest around the start of the millenium. When I stopped returning to UK in the summer I kept watching Eastenders for a while (until fairly recently in fact) via internet, but gave up on Corrie’s youngsters.
Favourite character? Has to be Hilda. For my 21st birthday my mum got me a signed photo of Jean Alexander which I still have somewhere. But another particular favourite was Raquel. I recently rewatched Happy Valley. What a brilliant actress Sarah Lancashire is. I’m looking forward to the new series of Happy Valley next year.
Is it still in black and white?
Fred ‘Foghorn Leghorn’ Elliott deserves a mention as one of the finest in a fine array of comedy characters in Corrie. I say Fred ‘Foghorn Leghorn’ Elliott deserves a mention as one of the finest in a fine array of comedy characters in Corrie.
+1
Not many have made the cross over from Clockwork Orange to Butcher
When John ‘Fred Elliott’ Savident was violently attacked in his flat by a man he had met in a bar in 2000 one tabloid headline ran, ‘I’ve just been stabbed. I say, I just been stabbed.’
“My mother taught me to save myself…but I’ve saved myself for so long that the danger has passed!”
Mavis to Rita, on being single.
Blocked outside of UK. Bloody Brexit I bet.
What is it?
Les Dennis (as himself) in Extras doing his Mavis Riley impression.
The Ogden’s second honeymoon – so true to life (“What’s that lipstick taste of?”)
Hard to see scriptwriters now being allowed nearly as much time to let a scene develop and breathe
Brilliant clip. Stan’s terrified “eh??” when she asks for a kiss.
In this episode, they enjoy a sumptuous meal at the hotel and they receive top-notch service. When the waiter asks if everything was to their satisfaction they are very complimentary.
Then Hilda discreetly calls the waiter over, pointing out in hushed tones that, actually, her cocktail glass was dirty. The waiter is very alarmed. She tells him there was a coating of sugar around the rim – but she doesn’t want to get anyone into trouble. The waiter pauses…thinks better of what he was going to say…and effusively apologises and promises that the matter will remain between them only and they share a conspiratorial nod of understanding.
And who can forget Hilda’s “muriel”.
I loved Coronation Street in the seventies but stopped watching it after the death of Stan Ogden. I watched it recently for the first time in years and was very disappointed.
Here’s Fred Gee sporting his wig in a classic scene which I thought was very funny.
34p!
@noisecandy
Rita looks alarmingly like Thatcher early on in that clip.
Jack Howarth (Albert Tatlock) used to live in the Midland Hotel on Peter Street about 100 yards from ypthe office i used to work at in Manchester. My then gf worked at the hotel amd said the staff there used to hate him because he was so unpleasantto them
Albert Tatlock, unpleasant? The very thought!
This Is Your Life featuring Jack Howarth is on YouTube. I watched it recently (I should really try to get out more). Howarth doesn’t crack a smile once and grunts at each of his guests. A real charmer.
I guess he wasn’t acting at all.
He was – Albert was quite an affable chap, if a bit undiplomatic.
Watched it throughout my youth, my mum’s favourite programme. Despite missing great chunks during school terms, it never really mattered, it all just fell back into place. I guess I didn’t watch it much between 1978 and 2003, but my second wife was also an addict. There were still so many residual characters left over and still standing as to need no recaps, it again just fell into place. We parted in 2102, but I suspect the rot had begun, there was a greater emphasis on stories than characters. Have I missed it? No. Would I still know who was who and why? Uncertain, but it wouldn’t surprise me if I did.
The Time Traveler’s Ex-Wife
Second best villain on The Street was Alan Bradley (played by Mark Eden, who prior to being married to Sue Nicholls, Audrey in Corrie, was wed to Joan Long, later Joan Le Mesurier). Marvellous location finale for Bradley, under a Blackpool tram. I seem to recall his run-ins with Terry Duckworth first revealed his psychopathic tendencies. That’s a great soap trope, where the wrong ‘un (in this case Duckworth) whom we don’t like becomes the one we’re rooting for when a new heel comes along.
Greatest villain, though, has to be Richard ‘Tricky Dicky’ Hillman. Brilliant casting – everyone’s favourite teacher from Grange Hill – slow drip drip reveal of his tendency to do away with his nearest and dearest and anyone in the vicinity if need be.
Re: Joan Long/Malin/Le Mesurier – she was also Tony Hancock’s lover… with John Le Mesurier’s knowledge. A very strange love triangle.
Asked about it, John said: “Every time I see you falling, I get down on my knees and pray”
PS. Richard Hillman’s final act of unpardonable villainy was to try and kill his entire family to the sound of You and Me by the Wannadies. Hanging’s too good for ’em etc
Started watching in the 80s, around the time of the legendary Ken/Deidre/Mike live triangle (30 million viewers?). I think these were peak times, Stan and Hilda, the beginning of Kevin and Sally, great line up in the pub, Percy etc. Generally wonderful and only twice (or thrice?) a week.
I also left the UK in late eighties and watched much less often, then started again for pretty much 20 years off and on from mid 90s until 2016 or 17, it is broadcast every day on CBC in Canada, they used to be a few months behind, but have now just about caught up.
Also some great characters and plotlines in that era. Think the deterioration started when they kept on increasing the number of episodes per week and also the switch to a new set for filming (Salford?), Just seemed to become low budget and soapy rather than a dramatic/comic long running TV series that it had been.
Favourite moments, anything regarding the above love triangle, Hilda picking up Stan’s specs after his death, and then the deaths of Vera and Jack Duckworth. The latter was truly moving and the lead up to it (him finding out about Tyrone’s son not actually being his) was truly extraordinary television.
Just as an aside, when I was 7 I thought Agnetha out of ABBA was Bet Lynch.
An easy mistake to make … 😮
Like many I haven’t watched it for years, since the classic Raquel episodes, and from what I can gather it has lost the charm and humour which made it essential viewing in the days of two episodes a week.
I think I posted this here when Johnny Briggs died, but my favourite ever scene was just Hilda Ogden and Mike Baldwin.
Hilda [eyes closed in concentration, hands held out in front of her and extended in turn]: I write with me right so what’s left is me left.
Mike: Do you have trouble with your right and left Hilda?
Hilda: Well, no, because I’ve got this way of remembering, you see?
I haven’t watched it for years, but always had a soft spot for Roy Barraclough as Alec Gilroy.
He was a frustrated theatrical impresario, wasn’t he? I remember him musing fondly about a novelty act he once had on his book called “Rats and Cats”….
It must have been the early 80s and I was probably about 10, and my family always watched Corrers.
One day we were out shopping in Manchester.
When we were walking back to the car park, we noticed what looked like a post-box sized cut out in a fence by the side of the road. Looked through it. It was the Coronation Street outdoor set!!!!!
And the first outdoor set I believe, Grape Street.
Looking back I am surprised now but my Dad let me climb over and walk down the road. The houses were just fronts, propped up from behind. And really small too. It was fascinating, though I now wish I had spent more time exploring (…and taking photos!)
That was surreal experience for the young me and a ‘magical’ day.
I haven’t watched it since the early 90s when I left the UK.
My parents stopped watching Corrers a few years ago. They said it was ‘rubbish’.
Corrers? Either Corrie or “The Street” please 😉
It was always ‘Correr’ in the north west in the 80s. ‘Corrie’ is a later southern affectation. I explained this to The Light as we took the train to Manchester a couple of days ago.
Really? First time I heard it called “Corrie” was from Julian Cope (via the NME)
My Yorkshire wife says Correr. Corrie is my softie southern affectation. It’s like I say Enders and she says That Shite.
It’s “Corro” down under.
Almost every name ends in “o” in Oz though, Black Celo
I’m originally from up north (hence the shopping in Manchester thing).
Where I am from it was Corrers, and I won’t be told otherwise! 😉
Corrers is what cricketers would call it, surely?
Of course if they’d kept the original name you’d now be watching Florrie.
Or Florro if you were tuning in from Oz
Florres.
It was my mother’s favourite TV show – as a youngster if I was at home sick on a school day, I could tell when it was 2.00pm because that trumpeting theme tune could be heard coming from the lounge.
Violet Carson came to Australia in 1968 as a guest presenter for the Oz TV awards; she was treated like royalty and mobbed wherever she went.
Quite right too.
My frustration with Coronation Street is that even now when it gets it right it is about as good as drama / comedy drama gets. The recent story line with Leanne and Steve losing their 4 year old son to mitochondrial disease was as heartbreaking, well written and acted as you’ll see anywhere. It then descended into near farce as Leanne got involved with a drugs gang story that defied all belief. You couldn’t believe it was the same show. Never mind the same character. The scenes with Roy or Steve and Tim or Mary and Tracie can be sublime and funny and warm and then you get Craig (PC Tinker) turning up to the latest shooting, arson or robbery EVERY SINGLE TIME!! It’s maddening. My partner watches it as she has done for years and I sit there with her loving the highs and despising the lows.
Wait…. Leanne is with Steve now??
No sorry, Leanne is with Nick. Steve with Tracie but Oliver the poor young lad who passed away was the product of a one night stand between Steve and Leanne. Do keep up….
What happened to Schmeichel?
Whatever happened to me?
What became of the people we used to be?
It beggars belief that Steve has now been married to various neighbors something like six times. IIRC, only Gail has been taken up the aisle more often.
Given the level of inter-breeding and the show’s scriptwriters increasing reliance on ever more outlandish storylines, I’d be surprised if PC Tinker doesn’t come across a family of CHUDs living under the Red-Rec before very long.
“ only Gail has been taken up the aisle more often.”
Paging Moose……
As was once pointed out in QI, the aisle is one the edge of the nave, not the centre. ‘So you can’t take a bride up the aisle, but you can take her up the central passageway.’
@Gatz
The other kids must have been queueing up to sit next to you at Xmas pantos and the Saturday morning pictures in your younger days, G.
Please, I’ve just had me dinner.
Coronation Street genuinely played a big part in driving public perceptions of certain topics, e.g. Martin – a man – becoming a nurse. I might be wrong, but I seem to remember reading that an increase in male nurses was linked to that storyline.
As a kid in the 80s, I remember the show with real affection. Even now, when wandering through Manchester, if anyone gets too close to a tram, I always think the situation could go ‘a bit Alan Bradley’. Deidre’s re-entry shield specs, Ken’s tossed sweater, Kevin’s moustache…all still cultural reference points in my house.
I stopped watching around millennium time; as many on here have said, the increase in episodes has diluted the character element.
I lost touch with CS in the mid-90s. When Dierdre ended up in nick I went past a student house where someone had put a “FREE THE RACHID ONE!” poster in the window. I assumed that this was some kind of miscarriage of justice which somehow hadn’t made it to the pages of Private Eye. “Bloody racist police at it again…” I thought.
It was big news at the time and tabloids gave away posters demanding justice. A work colleague told me at the time that he had passed a roadworks where the crew took a different view and put up a large sign reading ‘Death Row for Deirdre!’
While we’re talking about her, I saw a mention of Deirdre actor Anne Kirkbride on Twitter recently. Someone saw her in the big M+S in Manchester where Anne, one of the all time great smokers, was in the middle of a massive coughing fit. ‘You all right Anne, Love?’ ‘By ‘eck – I’m coughing me cunt up.’
👏👏👏👏👏
@Moose-the-Mooche
Funny how no one here has ever seen you and Tony Blair in the same place and at the same time, M…
I would never let Noel Gallagher in my house.
Funny, all the things on TB’s rap-sheet and that’s the worst thing I could think of.
Have been a big fan of Corrie over the years but the absurd plots are trying my patience.
Jack and Vera were big favourites and a briliant comedy duo.
In recent times Dev makes me laugh wirh his inflated ego making him think he is some king of lothario.
And Maureen Lipman is hilarious as Evelyn – her comic timing is a joy.