The Blog Of Stuart: Corrie's 50, But They Want No Fuss...

A little known fact about Coronation Street is that the first episode aired on ITV on the 9th of December 1960, which means that this week was Coronations Streets 50th birthday. However, they kept it very quiet. You would have thought that they would sell merchandise like CD's and DVD's to mark the occasion. You would have thought they ITV would do special shows to commemorate such a historic event; maybe a clip show of the best moments of the past 50 years or maybe even done a show with celebrities in which they answer questions about the show. Maybe they could have done a live show just like Eastenders did for their 25th, or possibly Coronation Street could have shown that very first episode. Also, you would expect the soap to have some huge storyline. Maybe it could be a big dramatic event which would play out over the course of a week, and could result in the death of numerous characters and other storylines reaching their climax. Well, that is exactly what they did do.

The tram crash was the worse kept secret in soap history; apart from every single affair which happens in any soap of course. We knew months ago that would be how Coronation Street celebrated their 50th. Not with a big party, but a huge explosion costing millions of pounds. It was for the most part, well done and all very well written.

ESSENTIALLY; the evening before a wedding everyone is out celebrating, with the stags in a new club under the viaduct and the hens in the old Rovers Return. It turns out there is some kind of gas leak (which no-one noticed...) causing a huge and completely random explosion in the new club destroying it and surrounding buildings. Then, just moments after, a tram goes over the viaduct and crashes off into the corner shops. This tram was made with CGI and had a great shot with the tram driver panicking before it crashed and he somehow survived the event, but I suppose that is because he is in no way important to any storylines. Numerous people are trapped in various places.

The surprise causes a woman to give birth 3 months early and they name the baby Hope. The woman's husband killed a mad woman who was trying to break them up with a hammer moments before the explosion to cover his previous lawbreaking tracks. He then later drags the body near the incident to make it look like part of the accident. She is announced as being brain dead.

A woman is trapped in one of the corner shops with her baby. She is in there as she had just left her husband after telling him that their baby was not his. This woman dies in the shop and the baby survives. However, before she dies she tells the wife of the bloke she had an affair with that the baby is his; meaning that the woman who died had an affair with her husband’s best mate (how original...). There is then confrontation between husband and wife and as far as we know; they have split up.

The club is owned by two people, and they used to married years ago but he left her. She is now engaged to a recovering alcoholic who has a son with a previous wife who he committed bigamy with. However, she starts a lustful affair with her ex just weeks before the marriage but she chooses to stay with her fiancée. The two men end up being together just as the tram crashed and the ex dragged his love rival from the rubble. He is very ill and nearly dead, so he marries his fiancée in hospital before he has a major operation. During the operation, the woman's friend admits that she is in love the woman's new husband and they fall out. We think the man will survive; just.

Another family are intending to move to France soon. The husband is at the stag party and the woman is at home looking after their 2 children and various others. The husband is also in the rubble, but he dies while trying to save someone's life and the house which the wife is in with all the children catches fire. They all eventually escape reasonably unharmed from the house. She finds out her husband has died and gets very understandably upset. She is upset and everyone says how great her husband was while her children sleep in a pub.

In the pub, a couple who cannot have their own child had previously brought her sisters toddler. She then came back and took him because she decides she wants another £5,000 for her son. They cannot afford it, so the wife secretly goes off and steals money from the safe of one of the collapsed corner shops which she will now use to buy the child back.

Other people such as the shop owners in both shops were seriously injured and are eventually saved. They seem to be surviving but soaps can shoot some surprising curve balls, so no-one who is in hospital is actually safe until they walk out the hospital.

Thursday had a live episode, attracting over 14 million viewers, in which the woman gave birth and people died and others cried, and it was brilliant with hardly any mistakes at all. In fact, you would have no idea that it was live apart from the occasional dodgy camera angle.

Did you follow all that? Of course you did, it is the classic drama which you find on every street in England, surely.

Oh what another fine mess they've found themselves in.

I suppose it would be fair to say that I am somewhat of a Corrie addict. I've been watching it for many years; longer than I can even remember. I've grown up with these people. I have my favourite characters, which are now mostly dying out. Everyone can agree that Blanche Hutt was the best and funniest character; a woman who died in real life last year and died in the soap about 9 months. She had some of the best lines ever to come from the soap, and her best scene was voted the best of the past 50 years (video at bottom of this blog). Some of her scenes could easily be from sketch shows.

My other favourite character died last month; Jack Duckworth. He is another great wit from the soap that can also have those moving scenes. When he died, the spirit of his dead wife returned to take him to Heaven in a sad episode. Surely, Vera Duckworth must be the first soap ghost?

In June we had another explosive week in which a serial killer returned from prison to kill more people and blowing the knickers factor up; the same week as the Cumbria shootings, and caused it to be removed from the schedules. I suppose Coronation Street should be lucky that there wasn't a major train crash the weekend before in the real world.

The thing about good writing is that it can make an audience have sympathy for one character and hatred for another. That is some of the power which the writing in Coronation Street has. You felt for Leanne when you saw her break down at being told her husband may not survive his operation; and the same for when Clare got told her husband had died being a hero, and these high emotions being performed on live television in front of 14 million people. It is not an achievement to be ignored.

Look at the concern on this man's face as he nearly crashes a tram into our beloved street...

When Tony Warren created this street over 50 years, he could have had no idea at how successful it would be and how long it would run. However, due to it being 50 years old, original ideas are hard to come by. Even the tram crash is something which has been done before; albeit with a train instead when the show was 7 years old.

Coronation Street has had almost every scandal possible, apart from a banker receiving a huge bonus. We've had bigamy, affairs, drug taking, underage pregnancy, murders, serial killers, transsexuals, alcoholics, drink driving, gay kisses, lesbian kisses, fraud, suicides and not to forget bad car and tram drivers; lots of these happening in just the past year.

The builders of Weatherfield are never bored. In between rebuilding houses and businesses after big disasters, they manage to pass the time away with small repairs and shop refits. It seems normal, boring everyday life, like the ones that us viewers suffer through, just isn't interesting nor gripping enough for us. To shock and grab our attention, they have to blow places up and kill much loved characters. The same goes for the other soaps.

In my street of 10 houses nothing like that happens. A house blew up from a gas leak about 10 years ago with no-one in it. A few of the old people have died or gone into homes. We have a retired gay teacher who lives on the corner and we suspect that our neighbour is having an affair with a very small man. That's about it; and that is actually all true. It may all sound interesting, but it really isn't, and nothing happens in the volume that is seems to occur in Coronation Street. I think the biggest scandal which we have had in the past year is the bins not being collected when it snows and the odd bit of graffiti.

Anyway, in conclusion, even though I may be a touch cynical about anything that happens on the soap; especially this week, this has been the greatest week for some time for the soap and they should be proud of their achievement. Not only did this week prove how fantastic the writing is for the soap, but it also proved how talented the actors and actresses are in the soap, with them all giving a superb performance, especially during the live episode. I look forward to seeing how this is all played out over the next weeks and I hope it creates some more poignant moments where you realise that the actors are actually really good. Who knows what the next 50 years has in store for the soap? Maybe for their 100th celebration they will be attacked by a nuclear missile from some Arabian country which will then intoxicate them with so much radiation, they all grow antlers and rape each other’s wives. Of course, William Roache will still be in it, but he will be like a character from Futurama and his head will be kept on the mantel piece in a container filled with liquid.

We will have to see. When that time comes I will be 68, so I would have just retired. I look forward to it.