Welcome to Corrie that is Coronation Street, Maryport, not Manchester. It would be easy to muddle the two, however, as Coronation Street Maryport appeared in an advertisement in prime-time television this week, sponsoring the popular and long-running soap. The advertisement was for Argos, which has become only the fourth major sponsor in the soap opera’s 60-year history. Gavel Street resident Kimberley Benson watched it all happen. “My mum, Julie Howley, lives in Coronation Street and I can see her house from mine. “We got letters in December asking us to move our cars off the street between 7am and 5pm on day.
TV Editor
On a busy night there s Queens of the Street, which focuses on the female stars in Coronation Street, Christy Ring: Man and Ball, Far from the Madding Crowd, as well as some Christmas specials and season finales . . .
Pick of the Day
Queens of the Street, 9.00pm, Virgin Media One
Of all the Corrie specials, this could be the best - a programme celebrating the Weatherfield women over the years, since the very first episode aired in December 1960.
There’s never been a shortage of great female characters on The Cobbles: Ena Sharples, Elsie Tanner, Hilda Ogden, Vera Duckworth, and Bet Gilroy are just some of the show’s finest. The great Sarah Lancashire cut her acting teeth here as Rovers barmaid Raquel.
Jack, Vera, Rita and me: The Corrie star you ve never heard of who has been in 50 episodes over 40 years and had six different parts
Fascinating reminisces from modest Jim Whelan, who got his start in Greater Manchester s clubland
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The television institution has held on to a unique identity across six decades
A scene from Coronation Street in 1974. ‘Over its six decades the show has dealt with subjects ranging from teenage pregnancy to assisted dying.’ Photograph: ITV/Rex/Shutterstock
A scene from Coronation Street in 1974. ‘Over its six decades the show has dealt with subjects ranging from teenage pregnancy to assisted dying.’ Photograph: ITV/Rex/Shutterstock
Fri 11 Dec 2020 13.23 EST
Last modified on Fri 11 Dec 2020 23.37 EST
In the Coronation Street writers’ room at Granada Studios, a magnificent black and white photograph of Ena Sharples used to adorn the wall. Wearing her signature hairnet, the legendary denizen of the Rovers Return snug is looking out at grimy 1960s Manchester. According to the onetime scriptwriter, Frank Cotterell Boyce, someone wrote a caption for it: “When I was a lass there was Coronation St, Inkerman Street, the Red Rec. And the rest of the world was all talk.”
“The Street’s battle-axes and matriarchs have already been saluted this year in a collection of retrospectives, hastily compiled during the first lockdown when it was impossible to film new episodes. But there seems no limit to how often viewers will happily watch black-and-white clips of Ena Sharples in her hairnet, gossiping with her cronies Minnie Caldwell and Martha Longhurst. And there’s endless pleasure to be had in glimpsing Doctor Foster’s Suranne Jones as Karen McDonald or Happy Valley’s Sarah Lancashire when she was known only for being daffy barmaid Raquel.”
“I loved Queens of the Street, a retrospective on the dazzling, ball-busting matriarchs who have always set Corrie apart. From Ena Sharples making men tremble with one look from her flinty eyes to Vera Duckworth terrifying her husband, Jack, by suggesting that they have “an early night”.”