Real Street fighting man

JUST to warn you, there’s an awful lot of prewatershed violence on ITV tonight, specifically in the 8.30-9pm slot.And I’m afraid it’s all the fault of one man. CORONATION STREET ICONS: KEN BARLOW is the first in a new four-part series (the other three parts are about different Corrie characters, just in case you’re thinking the concept sounds a wee bit Ken-heavy) and its greatest lasting impression is of a man who doesn’t half enjoy a good punch-up.

Or certainly enjoyed. Ken is now 80 years old (and the chap who plays him, Bill Roache, is 88), so he tends not to favour fisticuffs as much he used to.

But the show is awash with clips of his younger self lashing out.

“I enjoy the physicality of acting,” Bill tells us (which sounds to me like thespian-speak for “I like punching other actors in the face.”)

And from the evidence on show, we don’t doubt it.The very first of Ken’s brawls, we’re reminded, was in the Rovers, way back in the gritty black-and-white days, after Len Fairclough accused him of being a snob.

Ken, who had a particularly haughty tone back then, replied by calling Len a “loud-mouthed, beer-swilling moron” – and, well, you can guess the rest.

The scene actually looks quite shocking even now. “I loved it,” chuckles Bill.

Oodles of other fights followed, some of them one-offs (remember when he was fired from his teaching job for assaulting mouthy pupil Aidan Critchley?), others part of some ongoing feud or other. But top of Ken’s all-time enemy list, without question, was knicker factory boss Mike Baldwin, his nemesis for more than 20 years.

In 1983, after finding out about Mike’s affair with Deirdre, Ken even threatened to kill him.

But he never quite got around to it.

In April 2006, Mike Baldwin suffered a fatal heart attack, collapsing on the rain-lashed cobbles. Needless to say, it was Ken in whose arms he passed away. Corrie loves a poetic twist.

Elsewhere in episode two of INSIDE MISSGUIDED: MADE IN MANCHESTER the fast-fashion brand is planning to disrupt London Fashion Week as part of its latest guerrilla marketing campaign.

And for this they’ve hired everyone’s favourite reality TV star, Gemma Collins.

“We’re all really excited,” exclaims social media executive Cassie. “We think this is a really iconic collaboration.

“When we think of disruption, we all think of Gemma Collins.”

Which makes me wonder if perhaps I’m not Missguided’s target market.

Personally, when I think of disruption I tend to think of junction 15 of the M25.