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Coronation
Street
 UK
/ Granada /several thousandx30m-e /
1960-continuing / Currently shown four times a
week, Monday,Wednesday,Friday and Sunday 7.30pm
creator: Tony
Warren / theme music: Eric Spear.
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 Coronation
Street is one of the longest running continuing
drama series in the world. Started in 1960 and
set in the Manchester borough of Weatherfield
the show depicts incidents in the lives of the
people living in the terraced Coronation Street
of the title. One of these characters - Ken
Barlow - has been in the show since episode one.
Amazing to think that the show was just supposed
to run for 13 episodes and was to have been
called Florizel Street. The early years of the
show followed the kitchen sink school of realism
then current in UK TV and Cinema with the show
dominated by the feisty Elsie Tanner and the
hairnet wearing battle axe Ena Sharples. The
focal point of the show has always been the
Rovers Return the pub on the corner of
Coronation Street and in the shows early years
there was a snug bar where Ena and her two
friends Martha Longhurst and Minnie Caldwell
would hold court.
Early editions of the show were even broadcast
live. Arthur Lowe now most famous for playing
Captain Mainwaring in Dad's Army
was also a regular in the sixties playing shop
owner Leonard Swindley. Other key
characters from the sixties and seventies were
Len Fairclough (tough builder who later married
nightclub singer and paper shop owner Rita),
Hilda and her layabout husband Stan Ogden, Jerry
Booth, second longest running character Emily
Bishop, pub landlady Annie Walker and her put
upon husband Jack along with Albert Tatlock (Ken
Barlow's uncle). The seventies and early
eighties also saw the introduction of characters
who are still in the show today including Mike
Baldwin, Jack and Vera Duckworth, Deidre
Langton-Barlow-Rashid and Curly Watts.
The show has had guest appearances from
practically every well known UK actor at some
stage (with most appearing in small roles before
they became famous (Martin Shaw, Gorden Kaye,
Joanne Whalley, Peter Noone, Prunella Scales,
Richard Beckinsale, Davy Jones, Ben Kingsley and
Joanna Lumley to name just a few). Amazingly the
show has stayed at the top of the ratings in the
UK throughout its history and though thousands
of actors have come and gone the shows
storylines have basically stayed the same
(Ordinary people doing ordinary things).
There have been over fifty weddings in
Coronation Street over the years (quite a few of
them it has to be said involving Ken Barlow and
Mike Barlow).
On Friday 8 December 2000 the programme
celebrated its 40th anniversary by broadcasting
a special hour long live edition.
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Cast
This is of couorse only some of the more
important characters to have appeared, there
have benn thousands of characters over the
years.
VIOLET CARSON
as Ena Sharples / DORIS SPEED as Annie Walker /
PAT PHEONIX. as Elsie Tanner / WILLIAM ROACHE as
Ken Barlow / LYNNE CAROL as Martha Longhurst /
MARGOT BRYANT as Minnie Caldwell / JACK HAWORTH
as Albert Tatlock / EILEEN DERBYSHIRE as Emily
Nugent/Bishop / PETER ADAMSON as Len Fairclough
/ JEAN ALEXANDER as Hilda Ogden / BERNARD YOUENS
as Stan Ogden / NEVILLE BUSWELL as Ray Langton /
BRYAN MOSELY as Alf Roberts / BETTY DRIVER as
Betty Turpin / JULIE GOODYEAR as Bet Lynch /
BARBARA KNOX as Rita Fairclough/Sullivan /
THELMA BARLOW as Mavis Riley/Wilton / ANNE
KIRKBRIDE as Deidre Langton/Raschid / GEOFFREY
HUGHES asEddie Yeats / HELEN WORTH as Gail
Tilsley/Platt / JOHNNY BRIGGS as Mike Baldwin /
LYNNE PERRIE as Ivy Tilsley / SUE NICHOLLS as
Audrey Roberts / LIZ DAWN as Vera Duckworth /
BILL TARMEY as Jack Duckworth / SARAH LANCASHIRE
as Racquel Wolstenholme/Watts / KEVIN KENNEDY as
Curly Watts / AMANDA BARRIE as Alma Baldwin /
ROY BARRACLOUGH as Alec Gilroy / PHILIP
MIDDLEMISS as Des Barnes / CHARLIE LAWSON as Jim
McDonald / BEVERLY CALLARD as Liz McDonald /
DENISE WELCH as Natalie Barnes / VICKY
ENTWHISTLE as Janice Battersby / BRUCE JONES as
Les Battersby / JANE DANSON as Leanne Battersby/Tilsley
/ GEORGIA TAYLOR as Toyah Battersby /
JULIE HESMONDHALGH as Hayley Cropper /
DAVID NEILSON as Roy Cropper / JOHN SAVIDENT as
Fred Elliott / SEAN WILSON as Martin Platt /
TRACY SHAW as Maxine Heavy-Peacock / TRACIE
BENNETT as Sharon Gaskell / MICHAEL LE VELL as
Kevin Webster / SALLY WHITTAKER as Sally Webster
/ IAN MERCER as Gary Mallett / GAYNOR FAYE as
Judy Mallett / SIMON GREGSON as Steve McDonald /
STEVEN ARNOLD as Ashley Peacock / KEN MORLEY as
Reg Holdsworth |
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