Is the tide set to turn on Corrie?
As a new producer takes over on the Street we ask if the many calls for the soap to return to its roots may finally be heard
Life-long Corrie fans were delighted when, late last year, ITV3 began screening classic episodes of the Street from the Eighties. We loved seeing Jack and Vera having a go at each other, the skittishly prim Mavis feeling torn between suitors Derek Wilton and Victor Pendlebury, feisty redhead Rita being scared out of her wits with the return of sinister Alan Bradley, and acid-tongued Ivy Tilsley lashing out at flighty Audrey Roberts because she’s been excluded from a family dinner. Naturally there’s an element of nostalgia in watching a much-loved soap from all those years ago, but it’s not just that. We’re also watching in our hundreds of thousands in order to get a much-missed taste of the very elements that made Corrie great in the first place – northern humour, quirkiness, one-liners and well-drawn, three-dimensional characters who have been sadly lacking over the past few years. Instead we’ve had back-toback storylines of an often violent, depressing, extremely dark nature with precious little classic Corrie comedy. The show, traditionally always character driven, is now very issue-led. In addition to the controversially dark storylines, it seems any issue cropping up in the news has automatically become a Corrie narrative, which often just don’t ring true. There’s Craig suddenly developing Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Billy the vicar’s rapid descent into heroin addiction, Robert becoming addicted to steroids as soon as he started working out and the daft Toyah-Peter-Eva baby surrogacy storyline. Even Aidan’s suicide, although sensitively handled, seemed to come out of nowhere. While the Street has never shied away from hard-hitting, dramatic storylines – the reign of serial killer Richard ‘Norman Bates with a briefcase’ Hillman, Deidre Barlow’s wrongful imprisonment and subsequent ‘Free the Weatherfield One’ campaign, and Hayley Cropper’s heart-breaking battle with cancer spring to mind
– such narratives were always cut with vignettes of clever humour and hilarious one-liners such as, ‘Good looks are a curse. You and Kenneth should count yourselves lucky!’ (Blanche to daughter Deirdre), ‘Voulezvous couchez avec moi?’ (Racquel to Ken when he gave her French lessons), and Ena Sharples’ neverto-be forgotten ‘If I had my way I'd just like to go like me mother did. She just sat up, broke wind and died.’
In April, producer Kate Oates resigned. During her two-year tenure she garnered headlines aplenty with deeply controversial storylines. But the complaints also came flooding in – specifically 120 to Ofcom regarding Josh Tucker’s sexual assault of David Platt and more than 600 for the
violence exhibited by psycho serial killer builder, Pat Phelan. While such narratives are acceptable on a postwatershed gritty drama, they’re not exactly suitable for a pre-9pm familyfriendly soap, famed for its humour. In March Ms Oates appeared on This Morning and hit back at the critics, saying that it was the Street’s duty to tackle important issues. But the overwhelming response from viewers was that soaps shouldn’t be a platform for highlighting serious social problems. What is supposedly entertainment has become dark and unwatchable. The views of some life-long, high-profile Corrie fans echoed these sentiments, perhaps causing the powers-that-be to sit up and take notice.
“It was about working-class life in a little street – there used to be these wonderful vignettes in the Rovers, conversations about nothing. Now it’s like Syria,” said Paul O’Grady.
Fern Britton agreed. “Since the late Sixties, I’ve enjoyed watching Coronation Street and I still tune in,” she wrote a few months ago. “But the soap has lost the plot in recent months... the producers of the show, set among the back streets of Salford, seem to have decided to chase the East Enders audience… they’ve ramped up the sensationalism and we’ve had outrageous, hard-to-believe plots. It’s all a bit much.”
What is encouraging is that it’s been hinted that new producer, Iain MacLeod, who’s come across the Pennines from Emmerdale, intends to make greater use of the Street’s older, longestablished characters.
“Only Corrie could have tempted me away from Emmerdale,” he said. “It gave me my first job in TV as an Assistant Researcher and to return as Producer is the fulfilment of a longstanding dream. I look forward to continuing the amazing work already being done by everyone connected with the show.”
We hope for the return of the Corrie we know and love; true to the spirit of the traditional soap many of us have known and loved since it started almost 60 years ago. Fingers crossed.
‘If I had my way I’d just like to go like me mother did. She just sat up, broke wind and died.’ Ena Sharples