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Oberschwäbische Flugpioniere (Ausstellung in Bad Waldsee, 18. März bis 01. November 2005, Do-So 14:30-17.00; Sa/So +9:30-12.00).

Die Seifenoper Coronation Street ist die erfolgreichste Fernsehserie Großbritanniens. Die von Tony Warren ins Leben gerufene Serie läuft seit 9. Dezember 1960 jeden Freitag im Fernsehsender ITV. Die Serie schildert das Alltagsleben der Bewohner der fiktiven Straße "Coronation Street" in der fiktiven Industriestadt "Weatherfield", die an Salford erinnert (eine heute zu Greater Manchester gehörende Industriestadt, in der es sogar eine echte "Coronation Street" gibt). Coronation Street ist von komödiantischem, manchmal bizarren Humor geprägt, greift aber auch gesellschaftliche Themen wie Homsexualität und Transsexualität oder Verbrechen wie Vergerwaltigung oder Serienmorde auf.

In Großbritannien wird die Serie auch liebevoll Corrie genannt, als berühmtester Fan gilt Königin Elisabeth II.. Hauptkonkurrenten sind die ähnlich aufgebauten Seifenopern Emmerdale (ITV) und EastEnders (BBC). Auch die Grundidee der deutschen Serie Lindenstraße entspricht der zwanzig Jahre älteren Coronation Street.

In den ersten Jahren wurde Coronation Street live ausgestrahlt; inzwischen wird die Serie etwa sechs Wochen vor der Ausstrahlung produziert.

Die Straße

"Coronation Street" spielt hauptsächlich in einer Zeile von sieben Reihenhäusern, die von typischen Mitgliedern der der britischen Arbeiterklasse bewohnt werden. Die Straße soll 1902 erbaut worden und nach der Krönung Edwards VII. in diesem Jahr benannt worden sein. Die Nachbarstraßen heißen "Rosamund Street" und "Viaduct Street". Die Architektur der Straße basiert auf der Archie Street in Salford, die auch in der ursprünglichen Titelsequenz der Serie auftauchte. Ursprünglich wurden Außenaufnahmen in einer etwas verkleinerten Kulisse innerhalb eines Studios gedreht. 1968 wurde die Straße zunächst als Open-Air-Kulisse in der Nähe der Granda-Studios aufgebaut, jedoch immer noch in reduzierter Größe. Erst 1982 wurde eine Kulisse in Originalgröße erbaut. Die Häuser sind aus Ziegelsteinen erbaut und sollen dauerhaft verwendet werden, haben jedoch keine Wände im Inneren.

Außer den Wohnbauten gibt es in der Coronation Street einen Zeitungskiosk (The Kabin), ein kleinen Imbiss (Roy's Rolls), ein Lebensmittelgeschäft, eine Fabrik (Underworld) und den Pub The Rovers Return.

Bei Sendebeginn 1960 war die Serie nicht sofort erfolgreich und auch innerhalb der Produktionsgesellschaft Granada umstritten. Nicht zuletzt der Schauplatz im industriellen Nordengland und die Anklänge an den dortigen Dialekt verhalfen der Serie jedoch zu einer gewissen Beliebtheit bei den Zuschauern, da diese Region in den 1960er Jahren duch Filme wie Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, die "Kitchen-Sink"-Dramas der BBC und den Aufstieg des Beat, besonders der Beatles immer beliebter wurde.

Handlung und Hauptrollen

Die Geschichten konzentrieren sich auf den Alltag und das Familienleben der Protagonisten und ihr soziales Umfeld. Von Religion, Politik und Familie bis zur Sanierung von Stadtvierteln spiegeln sich Umbrüche in der britischen Alltagskultur in der lang laufenden Serie wieder. So wird die Säkularisierung der Gesellschaft in der "Coronation Street" deutlich: war zu Beginn der Serie die Glad Tidings Mission Hall noch ein wichtiger sozialer Treffpunkt, wo sich Straßenbewohner zu Gottesdiensten und gesellschaftlichen Anlässen trafen, ist im 21. Jahrhundert mit Emily Bishop noch eine einzige praktizierende Christin Bewohnerin der Straße; ansonsten wird die Kirche nur noch gelegentlich bei Hochzeiten oder Beerdigungen erwähnt.

Zu Beginn der Serie stellten die Alltagsgeschichten der Coronation Street vor allem dar, wie die Mitglieder der Arbeiterklasse selbst eine Art Miniatur-Klassensystem mit vielfältigen Abstufungen errichten, das durch Abgrenzung gegen die geprägt ist, die in moralischer, kultureller oder wirtschaftlicher Hinsicht unterlegen zu sein scheinen.

Nur eine Rolle wurde über die gesamte Laufzeit der Serie beibehalten: Ken Barlow (gespielt von William Roache). Er war ursprünglich ein radikaler Sprössling einer Großfamilie und symbolisierte die rebellische britische Jugend der 1960er Jahre. Im Laufe der Serie war er seither als Lehrer, Zeitungsherausgeber, Bürgerrechtsaktivist und sogar als Einkaufswageneinsammler im Supermarkt tätig, bevor er zuletzt wieder in den Lehrerberuf zurückkehrte. In der Zwischenzeit war er dreimal verheiratet, einmal verwitwet und zweimal geschieden, wurde vier mal Vater und hatte nicht weniger als 27 Freundinnen. Jahrzehntelang war Mike Baldwin (gespielt von Johnny Briggs), ein konservativer Kleiderfabrikant, Barlows Erzfeind. Die beiden gerieten nicht nur in politischer Diskussion aneinander, sondern waren – typisch für eine Seifenoper – in vielfältiger Weise über persönliche Beziehungen verbunden, bis hin zu Baldwins Affäre mit Kens Ehefrau Deirdre, die schon vor ihrer Ehe einmal Baldwins Freundin gewesen war.

Eine weitere berühmte Rolle ist die der Pub-Pächterin: Annie Walker wurde über 20 Jahre lang von Doris Speed gespielt, die so zu nationaler Berühmtheit aufstieg.

Musik

Die Titelmusik der Serie, ein Stück für Blechblasorchester im Sound der 1940er Jahre, wurde von Eric Spear komponiert und seit der Erstausstrahlung 1960 nur geringfügig verändert.

Characters and characterisations

Of the original cast on the first show in 1960, only one character remains today: Ken Barlow, played by William Roache. Barlow entered the storyline as the young radical son of a large family, epitomising the youth of 1960s Britain, where figures like the Beatles, the model Twiggy, the Rolling Stones and the Who were reshaping the concept of youthful rebellion. Though the rest of the family were killed off or moved, Ken Barlow has remained the constant link throughout 40 years of Coronation Street. For more details of Ken's storylines, see the article devoted to him.

Barlow's character embodies the clash of perspectives and cultures played out in the soap opera. For decades his arch-foe was Mike Baldwin (Johnny Briggs), a dodgy Cockney businessman, who set up a clothes factory on the street. Baldwin and Barlow epitomised two different types of character. Whereas Barlow was an arts-orientated, left-of-centre community-centred man, Baldwin was a cut-and-thrust, capitalist, right-wing businessman, who forever mocked Barlow as a "waster" who could do 'nothing but talk'. Their lives were complicated in typical soap-opera style by personal links. Barlow's third wife, Deirdre (Anne Kirkbride), had an affair with Baldwin before going back to Barlow. Baldwin then met and married Barlow's daughter, Susan (by an earlier marriage), after she had supposedly had an abortion. A decade later it became apparent that she had not had an abortion, but had borne Baldwin's child. Finally she told her father, who told Deirdre, who told Dev Alahan (Jimmi Harkishin), who told Mike Baldwin, who tried to get access to his son, Adam. In fleeing from him, Susan was killed in a car-crash, leaving Adam's father (Mike Baldwin) and his grandfather (Ken Barlow) fighting over custody. In one of the great soap-opera reconciliations, Baldwin and Barlow, having reconciled their differences, became friends (as are the actors who play them in real life).

Humour

Since its launch, Coronation Street has become famous for its humorous storylines. These include the notoriously prissy, reserved and plain Mavis Riley (Thelma Barlow) having not one but two suitors throwing themselves at her, while she in true Mavis-mood cannot make her mind up between them, saying her catchphrase, "oooh, I don't knooooow". When she finally decides to pick one, she ends up being named as the 'other woman' in a divorce case! When she and Derek finally agree to marry, both fail to turn up at the church, where hundreds of their friends are waiting. When Derek is offered a company car by his new company, which manufactures stationery, it is a lime green car with the company logo on the side and a large plastic paper clip on top. They fill their garden with kitsch decorations, only to have someone "kidnap" their garden gnome and send letters demanding payment of a ransom. They then receive photographs of their kidnapped gnome photographed at famous world monuments.

Another comic creation from the early 1990s, Reg Holdsworth (Ken Morley), who was rapidly balding, tried to look more virile by getting an appalling toupée, which he thought would "draw the ladies".

In 2002, one of the comedy storylines involved a notoriously homophobic loudmouth character, Les Battersby (Bruce Jones), whose wife has left him, taking in a male lodger, only to be informed by the local council (who owns his house) that in taking in a lodger he has broken his tenancy agreement and must move. To hold on, he and his dimwitted teenage lodger decide to pose as a gay couple, or what they imagine a gay couple's home would be, with hilarious results, all the more so when his estranged wife Janice (Vicky Entwistle), worried that he might lose his house, returns to pose as his happily married wife. She walks in on a house turned into a shrine to Judy Garland and Liberace, to be asked by the Council official "was it when your husband 'came out' that the marriage broke up?" She blows her husband's totally unconvincing scam by erupting into laughter. "Les. Gay? LES? Les is not gay. Les?"

Another storyline involved efforts by locals to stop Council plans to turn an open space (the "Red Rec", red indicating the amount of blood spilt there during a battle in the English Civil War, according to the storyline) into a housing development and stadium complex. The normally reserved Emily Bishop, spurred on by her environmentalist nephew, Spider Nugent (Martin Hancock), ends up staging a sit-in up a tree alongside other youthful environmentalists, aided by local "conscience" Ken Barlow and local history expert Roy Cropper (David Neilson).

In recent years a running gag has developed on the show involving Fred Elliot's tendency to propose marriage to any lady that he gets involved with, usually under the most bizarre circumstances and having disastrous consequences for Fred. This long-running gag began in 1996 when Fred proposed to Rita Sullivan, who turned him down. Since then Fred has proposed to:

  • Maureen Holdsworth (former wife of another comic character, Reg), who actually married him only to leave him ten days later for another man;
  • Audrey Roberts, whom he proposed to while in France, only to have her turn him down;
  • Eve Sykes, who also married him, only to turn out to be a bigamist;
  • Doreen Heavey, the mother of Fred's daughter-in-law Maxine, whom Fred proposed to while they were both drunk;
  • Penny King, who was having an affair with Fred's best friend Mike Baldwin.

A storyline from May 2004 saw Fred order a bride from Thailand through an acquaintance, only to learn that she was a con artist.

Long-established characters

  • Ken Barlow (William Roache) is the only character who has been on the Street since the first episode. His family left one by one: his mother died under the wheels of a bus, his father married a younger woman and left town, and his brother died with his young son in a car accident. He has married three times: to Valerie Tatlock (who died when she was electrocuted by her own hairdryer), Janet Reid (who divorced him and later committed suicide when he wouldn't take her back), and Deirdre Hunt Langton (who cheated on him, begged him to reconcile, then divorced him when he cheated on her). He has since remarried Deirdre.
  • Emily Bishop (formerly Emily Nugent), who joined the cast in the 1960s as a young woman, working at Gamma Garments. She jilted lay preacher Leonard Swindley in 1964, and stayed a virgin until her 37th year, when she made love with her Hungarian revolutionary boyfriend. She finally married in 1972 Ernest Bishop, and had to cope with his murder in 1978. Emily is now a widow in her seventies, a neighbourhood stalwart respected and liked by all, and the Street's only religious believer. In January 2003, she was badly injured after being hit over the head by Richard Hillman (who minutes later killed Maxine Peacock) but made a full recovery and returned home.
  • Ray Langton (Neville Buswell), first husband of Deirdre Barlow and father of Tracy Barlow. He first appeared in 1966 and was a Street mainstay in the 1970s until he became a wandering husband who left the Street on 15 November 1978. He reappeared in Viva Las Vegas as a now-gay barman, and then reappeared in the Street itself when he nearly crashed into Tracy and his grand-daughter on 2 March 2005. He died at Deirdre and Ken's wedding reception on 8 April 2005.
  • Betty Williams, (formerly Betty Turpin, played by Betty Driver), was a policeman's wife first brought to the Street as convenient help for her sister Maggie Clegg (Irene Sutcliffe). Since then, she got a job pulling pints at the Rovers and has been a bartender there for over 35 years.
  • Rita Sullivan (formerly Rita Littlewood/Fairclough, played by Barbara Knox), one-time nightclub singer, twice-widowed owner of a small newsagent's shop, whose role often is to play the 'straight' part of a comedy double act, the other being the invariably odd-ball co-worker, Mavis or, most recently, Norris;
  • Mike Baldwin (Johnny Briggs), London-born businessman who ran the Baldwin's Casuals jeanswear factory before selling to a property developer, who built the houses in which many characters now live. He then established an underwear business further up the street, called Underworld. Married four times — to Susan Barlow, Jackie Ingram and Alma Sedgewick, all of whom divorced him; and Linda Sykes, from whom he is estranged. Has two sons — Mark Redman (from an affair with florist Maggie Redman in the early 80s) and Adam Baldwin (by first wife Susan, though Mike always believed Susan had aborted the baby).
  • Deirdre Barlow (formerly Deirdre Hunt/Langton/Rachid, played by Anne Kirkbride) third and current wife of Ken Barlow. Her first husband Ray Langton left her. Ken Barlow was her second. Her third husband, Samir Rachid, died in mysterious circumstances while on his way to donate a kidney to Deirdre's daughter Tracy (he died, so she got both kidneys). Deirdre and Ken reconciled after being divorced for over a decade, and remarried in 2005.
  • Gail Platt (formerly Gail Potter/Tilsley/Hillman, played by Helen Worth), thrice-married, twice-divorced and twice-widowed (she remarried her first husband, who was later killed) forty-something who came into the series as a teenage girl in the 1970s, whose third husband, Richard Hillman, was a serial killer. Her oldest son Nicholas (born 1980, played by Adam Rickitt) was involved in several major storylines, including a gay kiss with Todd Grimshaw and a marriage at the age of 17 to Leanne Battersby. Gail's second child and only daughter, Sarah (born 1987), became pregnant at the age of 13. Gail's second son and youngest child, David (born 1990), has been involved in only one major storyline - he was abducted and nearly drowned along with three other family members by step-father Richard Hillman in March 2003. Gail, David, Sarah and Bethany were saved but Richard drowned and his body was recovered hours later from the canal into which he had driven the family car.
  • Audrey Roberts (formerly Audrey Potter, played by Sue Nicholls), widow of former Weatherfield mayor Alf Roberts, owner of the local hair salon, mother of Gail and near-victim of Richard Hillman;
  • Vera and Jack Duckworth (Liz Dawn and William Tarmey) — the street's most legendary comedy duo, the perennial losers, with a villain son who returns to visit and rip them off occasionally. Having inherited a large sum, they lost it to Richard Hillman. Vera initially appeared without Jack, who was mentioned for two years before appearing onscreen.
  • Kevin and Sally Webster (Michael Le Vell and Sally Whittaker), a hard-working garage mechanic and his pushy, ambitious wife. The couple has had many marital troubles, including Kevin's affair with Alison Wakefield (who he married after filing for divorce: Alison died less than a year after they tied the knot). Currently, Kevin and Sally are remarried. Sally has just ended an affair with her boss, which indirectly led to the murder of Tommy Harris, and will lead to further repercussions later.
  • Martin Platt, a male nurse who joined the show as a 20-year-old in 1985 and entered into a relationship with Gail Tilsley, 14 years his senior. They married in 1991 and had a son, David. Martin adopted Nick and Sarah Louise, Gail's children from a previous marriage. They split up after he had affairs with Cathy Power in 1994 and with Rebecca Hopkins in 1999-2000. He eventually fell in love again with Katy Harris, who committed suicide.
  • Steve McDonald (Simon Gregson), the only member of the McDonald family (parents Jim and Liz, twin brother Andy) to have remained constantly on the Street since their arrival in the autumn of 1989, although his mother Liz has now returned. Steve is an ex-rogue, now running a taxi business. First married to heiress Victoria Arden, then the devoted but demanding Karen Phillips (Suranne Jones), whom he threw out at the end of 2004. He has a daughter called Amy by Tracy Barlow, daughter of Deirdre. In September 2000, Steve was badly injured in a fight with Jez Quigley. Jez was later beaten to death by Steve's father Jim who subsequently received an eight-year prison sentence for manslaughter.
  • Hayley Cropper, who joined the Street in 1998 as Hayley Patterson. She joined the show as a pre-op transsexual. She is now 'married' to café owner Roy Cropper. Though accepted by most of the characters as a woman, occasionally comments about her past arise - such as when the Rovers Return ladies bowls team got disqualified (though that humorously turned out to be not because she is a transsexual, and the captain of the opposing team turned out to be a transsexual too).

Backstage staff

  • Bill Podmore was the show's longest serving producer. By the time he stepped down in 1988 he had completed 13 years at the production helm. Nicknamed the "godfather" by the tabloid press, he was renowned for his tough, uncompromising style and was feared by both crew and cast alike. He is probably most famous for sacking Peter Adamson, the show's Len Fairclough, in 1983.

Celebrity appearances

Celebrities who began or spent part of their career in Coronation Street include:


Laurence Olivier once offered to take part in a scene on the Street, acting alongside Jean Alexander, whom he admitted was his favourite actress on the programme. However, scheduling conflicts between the Street and the film Marathon Man denied him the chance to act on his favourite TV programme. Michael Crawford and Robbie Williams have both appeared as extras, drinking in the bar of the Rovers.

In 2000, the show celebrated its fortieth year by broadcasting a live thirty-minute show, its first live broadcast in decades. Guest of honour in the show was His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales, heir-apparent to the British Throne, who featured in a pre-recorded segment, a 'news bulletin report' of his being welcomed to Weatherfield by then-mayor Audrey Roberts, which was being shown on the TV in the Rovers Return at one point on the evening. (His mother, Her Majesty The Queen, has visited the Coronation Street set and met the cast on a number of occasions, even taking a drink with the cast in the Rovers Return.)

Scheduling

The programme is currently shown in five episodes on four evenings a week on British television: on Mondays at 19.30 and 20.30 (with the current affairs programme Tonight with Trevor MacDonald in between the two episodes), and at 19.30 on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, when the BBC1 soap EastEnders goes out at 19.30, the "Corrie slot" on ITV is filled by regional programmes. EastEnders is broadcast four times a week on the BBC (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday). When the two programmes were scheduled opposite each other in 1994, Corrie had millions more tuning in as the writers revealed that Emily Bishop's wedding was to be called off. Since then, the BBC has made sure EastEnders does not clash with Corrie anywhere on the schedule.

In 1981, over 24 million people in the United Kingdom watched Ken Barlow' marry Deirdre Langton — more than watched The Prince of Wales marry Lady Diana Spencer. Though viewing figures have declined (Ken and Deirdre's remarriage in 2005 attracted 12.9 million viewers [1], which still beat the 8.7 million who watched Prince Charles marry Camilla Parker-Bowles), partly due to the addition of new terrestrial and satellite channels and thus new rival programming, it still remains ITV's most-watched programme with audiences in excess of 10 million. The show's omnibus is shown on ITV2. Classic Corrie episodes are also airing on ITV3.

The special Christmas Day episode remains as central to many viewers' Christmas day celebration as the Queen's Speech. The Christmas Day episode that aired in 1987 was one of the most-watched episodes of all time; in the episode, Hilda Ogden left the Street to be a char to her doctor in the country. Nearly 27 million viewers tuned in.

Other countries

Coronation Street is also shown in many countries worldwide, being the centre of the TV schedule of Ireland's independent television station, TV3 Ireland (part-owned by Granada), which simulcasts it with ITV.

In Canada, it moved from a daytime slot on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) to primetime in 2004. Currently, the show is about nine months behind the episodes seen in Britain, but this gap varies. In 2005, CBC began broadcasting eight episodes a week in order to reduce the gap. The 2002 edition of the Guinness Book of Records recognizes the 1,144 episodes sold to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan TV station CBKST by Granada TV on 31 May 1971 to be the largest number of TV shows ever purchased in one transaction.

The programme is shown in Australia by the cable and satellite station UK.TV; the episodes are currently two years behind Britain. This gap is comparable to that for the episodes currently showing in New Zealand on Television New Zealand's TV One.

Coronation Street is, or has been, broadcast in almost every English-speaking country and territory around the world. The lone holdout is the United States. The Trio channel aired a few episodes of the serial as a part of special-interest programming project, but a concerted effort to air it in the American market has never materialized. A two-disc DVD compilation was released in America, however, provoking some optimism that a cable channel might be interested in showing the soap, and in the early 1970s some episodes were shown on WGBH Channel 2, the public television station in Boston, Massachusetts.

American viewers in the northern U.S. can view CBC's Coronation Street telecasts. Comcast cable TV subscribers near Seattle, Washington can view the show on CBC British Columbia affiliate CBUT. Other Americans near the Canadian border can view the program via over-the-air reception from nearby CBC transmitters. Coronation Street has a growing following among the few Americans who can view it on CBC.

Dutch broadcaster VARA showed 428 sub-titled episodes on Netherlands TV between 1967 and 1975.

VHS and DVD releases

In 1990, as a celebration for the serial's 30th anniversary, ten video tapes were released, each featuring four episodes from a specific year, introduced by someone who was close to the stories that year. (For example, Betty Turpin's husband Cyril died in 1974, therefore Betty Driver hosted the 1974 tape). These tapes were distributed by Granada Video for viewing in the UK. Also, many VHS tapes were made in the 1990s for the British market, from mail-order company Time-Life Distribution, with each tape consisting of edits for a particular character (for example, edits for Gail, or Rita, or the Duckworths). As they were made in PAL format, they were not distributed in the United States or Canada.

In 2003, a special DVD set called This is Coronation Street was released on Region 1 DVD. On the two-disc set is the 40 Years on Coronation Street one-off special as well as the first five episodes of the programme. In 2004, a Coronation Street: Secrets special was released on DVD in both the United Kingdom and Canada, but not in the United States, despite a Region 1 release in Canada.

Granada has also produced a number of straight-to-video spin-off productions, which were screened on television only after having been available in shops for some time, as an incentive to buyers. The first "exclusive" tape, released in 1995 featuring a storyline aboard the QE2, caused a legal controversy when it was later broadcast. Subsequent releases have included carefully worded statements concerning future television broadcasting.

Further releases have included a crossover with Emmerdale, and a United States-set special, Viva Las Vegas!, released on VHS in 1999 and screened on ITV the following year. Written by Russell T. Davies (Queer as Folk, The Second Coming, Doctor Who), the special featured a guest cameo from actor Neville Buswell, who was then living in America, briefly reprising his role as Ray Langton.

Corrie's rivalry with the BBC

When the BBC launched EastEnders, it soon developed into the principal rival of Coronation Street. By the 1990s it was attracting millions more viewers than Corrie. Criticism mounted against Corrie, with it being accused of complacency, blandness and being out of touch with contemporary Britain. By the early 21st century, however, the roles had been reversed, with a revamped Coronation Street praised for its strong characters, brilliant comic set-pieces, and universally praised quality of writing. In contrast EastEnders has been criticised for its downbeat, negative storylines, for the appearance of characters that the public disliked (the self-obsessed Ferrera family), storylines that viewers found distasteful (for example, the secret affair between one character and his adopted sister) and increasingly unbelievable stories (notably the re-appearance of supposedly long-dead Dirty Den, his sleeping with his son's girlfriend to get her pregnant, so that she could pretend her boyfriend was the father, then his murder again — this time for real — by a combination of his wife, mistress and someone he stole money from, etc.). While Coronation Street was being critically acclaimed and was winning awards, as well as bringing in some strong new young characters while continuing to give strong storylines to older characters, media reports at the end of 2004 and the start of 2005 suggested that the BBC was planning at best to cut back the number of EastEnders episodes. One tabloid report suggested that EastEnders came within 48 hours of being dropped altogether. The BBC had to announce that it was not going to scrap EastEnders and that the show would remain at the centre of its schedules.

Ironically, the main rival of Corrie is now its fellow ITV soap opera Emmerdale, a show around from the 1970s that has evolved into a widely viewed, widely praised show that, like Coronation Street, features a strong sense of community, a strong emphasis on humour, and slow-developing storylines, as opposed to the rapid turnover of characters, and rapid speed of storylines, in EastEnders. When EastEnders and Emmerdale went head-to-head, the bigger-budget EastEnders was humiliatingly beaten easily by Emmerdale, something that would have been unthinkable even a decade earlier, when EastEnders dominated national viewing and Emmerdale was a poor third place, often with less than half the viewers of EastEnders and Coronation Street.

The beginning of the 21st century is now being talked about as marking the 'golden age' of ITV soap operas. Soap operas remain however the one of only two areas of broadcast scheduling where ITV dominates the BBC, with the 'Beeb' attracting more viewers in the critical Saturday-night scheduling, sports coverage, politics coverage, coverage of the arts, and coverage of national events (state funerals, FA cup finals, election night coverage, etc.). Only in the areas of soap operas and in ITV News does ITV outperform the BBC.

Trivia

  • The show's most famous fan is Her Majesty The Queen. Other famous fans include Prince Charles, Ian McKellen (who have guested in the series), the late Laurence Olivier (who was supposed to have a guest appearance but scheduling problems got in the way), and numerous prime ministers. Frasier star Jane Leeves once commented that the only downside of living in the United States was that she was unable to see Coronation Street.

Literatur

  • Katherine Collier: Coronation Street. The Epic Novel. Carlton, London 2003, ISBN 0233050973
  • Daran Little: 40 Years of Coronation Street. Andre Deutsch, London 2000, ISBN 0233998063
  • Daran Little: Who's Who on Coronation Street. Andre Deutsch, London 2002, ISBN 0233999949
  • Daran Little/Christine Green: Coronation Street. The War Years (Roman über das Leben in der Straße im Zweiten Weltkrieg, der außer dem Schauplatz wenig mit der Serie zu tun hat)

Video

  • This Is Coronation Street. Regie: John Black. DVD. Acorn Media Publishing, 2003
  • Coronation Street: Secrets. Regie: John Black. DVD. Morningstar Entertainment, 2004

Kategorie:Fernsehserie Kategorie:Kultur (Großbritannien)

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