Mark Llewellin
Mark, who gave a tour de force on the history of the Pantomime in It’s Behind You! December 2022, returned to take us back to the birth of this ground breaking show. A programme that in the 1960s and 1970s regularly attracted figures of between 18 and 21 million viewers.
Elsie & Ena (Patricia Phoenix and Violet Carson)
First broadcast on December 9th 1960, Coronation Street created by the 24 year old Tony Warren remains a nation’s favourite to this day.
The new set in 1968, dubbed by the cast as 'The coldest place on earth'
Coronation Street was partly borne out of wish of Granada to produce more local drama, being contractually obliged to employ regional actors and production staff. Warren drew on memories of growing up in Swinton to Coronation Street, a working class community inhabited by “ordinary” people leading unspectacular lives. From that first episode it has been dominated by female characters. In the era of the Cold War ‘The Street’ had its own version of a head to head between titans Ena Sharples and Elsie Tanner. As different as chalk and cheese, with Ena thinking that Elsie was nothing but a harlot with loose morals, whereas Elsie viewed Ena as nowt but an interfering mean-tempered, old battle-axe. The finely drawn characters were painstakingly cast, with 600 actors auditioned for the initial 23 roles.
At the time of the first broadcast the language of the North for broadcaster lay in the language of the Music Hall - Old Mother Riley drag act and comedian George Formby. It didn’t translate to television drama. Besides, even if it did, no one in London would be able to understand it – so what was the point? Harry Elton, a Canadian producer, was hired to help develop local talent. Tony Warren was discovered by Elton, who hired him as a scriptwriter.
Cast of Coronation Street, 1960 (*list) [more information here]
These two individuals would the transform British television. For the first time, it gave viewers the authentic voices and speech patterns of those who lived there. As well as a wry humour that became more prominent over the years. The writer scripted 12 twice-weekly episodes, plus a 13th. This would see the street bulldozed to the ground, if the programme did not take off.
Similar to the boast made by News of the World at the time, the first ten years of programmes had all human life on offer. The skill of the writing and performances ensured that it became the nation’s favourite programme.
Minnie Caldwell (Margot Bryant), Ena Sharples (Violet Carson), Martha Longhurst (Lynne Carol - only 46 at the time)
From December 9, 1960, to March 3, 1961, Coronation Street aired twice a week, on Wednesdays and Fridays. During this time, the Friday show was broadcast live , while the Wednesday show was recorded 15 minutes after the live broadcast. After the show switched to a national network on March 6, 1961, the schedule was changed to Monday and Wednesday. The final episode shown live was on February 3, 1961.
Over the years from 1960, with 11,376 and counting broadcasts under its belt, ‘Coronation Street-The Set’ has been shepherded around Salford. Initially the set was of wood, in two sections due to the confinements of the studio, with the pavement and cobbles painted on the studio floor. The houses were three-quarters scale. This small set was awkward for the actors, who had to walk more slowly than normal to appear in scale with the houses. The sets used by the programme have undergone four major and several less extensive changes, spanning from 1960 to 2013. The new sets of 1982 were of such importance to the nation that the Queen Elizabeth II visited the Coronation Street studios in Manchester in 1982. Touring the drama studios, stopping at the Rovers Return pub, to meet with some of the actors involved in the long running show. The properties of 1982 were constructed to a scale of 7/10; the new backlot at MediaCity UK, constructed in 2013 is 9/10 full scale. [more information here]
According to BBC producer Olive Shapley, who had collaborated with Warren on Children’s Hour, the concept for Coronation Street (originally known as Florizel Street) struck him late one night in 1959 as they were returning to Manchester by train. Shapley recounted: "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 ..." I looked at him blearily and said, "Oh. Tony, how boring! Go back to sleep." ... Tony never let me forget my mistake!
When Warren, working as a scriptwriter on the detective series Shadow Squad since 1958, grew tired of adapting adventures from WE Johns’s books, in 1960, he approached its producer, Elton, requesting permission to create his own show. Thus, he wrote the first episode of Florizel Street, based on a script, Our Street, which had previously been rejected by the BBC. Although there was some initial reluctance from the Granada bosses to launch the serial, many of the staff reacted positively to a closed-circuit screening of a second “dry run” pilot episode. The show was eventually approved, with the title changed to Coronation Street after Agnes, the tea-lady, suggested the original sounded like a disinfectant.
But Warren found it difficult handing his baby over to other writers, who shared scripting duties with him. He also let success go to his head, ignored tax bills and came to rely on alcohol and drugs. In 1967 Warren’s agent had persuaded Granada to include the line “based on an idea by Tony Warren” in the Street’s end-titles and, after drying out, the writer later became a consultant to the serial. He served in that role for The Road to Coronation Street, a TV drama marking the programme’s 50th anniversary, which told the story of how it came to the screen.
By the late 1950s, Britain was transitioning from a society divided by class during the war to one that was more equal, thanks to the introduction of the National Health Service, the provision of social housing, and enhancements in public education. By early 1960, works by authors from the working class in Northern England, like Alan Sillitoe and Stan Barstow, had been published. Shelagh Delaney, a writer from Salford, had her play "A Taste of Honey" performed at Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop before moving it to London’s West End at Wyndham’s. Meanwhile, as we have seen a young writer named Tony Warren, who had grown tired of working on adaptations of "Biggles," seized the opportunity to contribute to this significant change by creating a show that would go on to become the longest-running TV series in the world.
A startling fact was revealed by Mark towards the end his story that Eric Spear got paid a flat fee of six pounds to write the “Lancashire Blues”, the haunting theme music, played on the trumpet. What would he have earned on royalties?
Thank you, once again Mark, a geat evening of social and brodcasting history.
Martin Cruickshank - October 2024
The images used in this article are sourced from many websites, including Coronation Street Fandom, ITV, Manchester Evening News, and Wikipedia.
* Cast photo of Coronation Street, 1960:
"Back row, from left: Ivan Beavis (Harry Hewitt), Jack Howarth (Albert Tatlock), Ernst Walder (Ivan Cheveski), Philip Lowrie (Dennis Tanner), Alan Rothwell (David Barlow), Arthur Leslie (Jack Walker), Bill Croasdale (policeman), Frank Pemberton (Frank Barlow), Noel Dyson (Ida Barlow), Margot Bryant (Minnie Caldwell). Front row: Doris Speed (Annie Walker), Betty Alberge (Florrie Lindley), Anne Cunningham ( Linda Cheveski), Patricia Phoenix (Elsie Tanner), Violet Carson (Ena Sharples), Christine Hargreaves (Christine Hardman), William Roache (Ken Barlow), Penelope Davies (policewoman), Patricia Shakesby (Susan Cunningham), Lynne Carol ( Martha Longhurst)"
Further reading: Coronation Street Fandom
Tribute to Tony Warren from Granada Reports - 2nd March 2016
