sun 03/11/2024

The Road to Coronation Street, BBC Four | reviews, news & interviews

The Road to Coronation Street, BBC Four

The Road to Coronation Street, BBC Four

Entertaining prequel drama about the northern soap has some standout turns

Formidable women: Tony Warren (David Dawson) and female company from 'The Road to Coronation Street'

A drama about Britain’s (and by the time Coronation Street reaches its 50th birthday in December, the world’s) longest-running soap starts with a huge advantage - its producers could just quote lumps of the brilliant original scripts, written by Corrie’s creator, Tony Warren, and be done with it. But Daran Little, himself a former writer on the show, resisted that urge (well, mostly) when penning The Road to Coronation Street, an affectionate and witty prequel that told us how the soap came about, or rather, how it almost didn’t.

A drama about Britain’s (and by the time Coronation Street reaches its 50th birthday in December, the world’s) longest-running soap starts with a huge advantage - its producers could just quote lumps of the brilliant original scripts, written by Corrie’s creator, Tony Warren, and be done with it. But Daran Little, himself a former writer on the show, resisted that urge (well, mostly) when penning The Road to Coronation Street, an affectionate and witty prequel that told us how the soap came about, or rather, how it almost didn’t.

Warren wrote terrific parts for women and fittingly the greatest pleasure here was knockout performances by Jessie Wallace and Lynda Baron

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road to coronation street was fantastic and i have loads of admiration for tony warren, i and a lot of other people i speak to would love to know why it was shown by bbc 4 when it has always been on itv, it is a mystery i hope you can let us know thank you Alison [big fan of Tony Warren]

Why wasn't Albert Tatlock in it? He was in the first episode and in 1980 was one of the five remaining from that episode. The other four (Ena Sharples, Annie Walker, Elsie Tanner, Ken Barlow) were all in it. Why couldn't they cast someone as Jack Howarth?

What a wonderful tribute to the longest serving soap; it was fantastic to see how it all began, and there was some fantastic acting from Jessie and the team. Happy birthday coronation street http://davidhatton1987.blogspot.com/2010/12/happy-birthday-coronation-st...

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