Coronation Street (TV Series 1960– )

Coronation Street: Created by Tony Warren. With William Roache, Helen Worth, Sally Dynevor, Simon Gregson. The world’s longest-running television soap, Coronation Street focuses on the everyday lives of working-class people in Manchester, England.

“Coronation Street has always had the edge over Eastenders in terms of its ability to marry comedy and tragedy, often in the same storyline. With Eastenders apparently in terminal decline, Corrie seemingly had the world at its feet, but there have been signs in recent months that the writers have seriously lost the plot. After the rather wonderful guest appearance by Sir Ian McKellen, which included his inspired exit scene, the producers seem to have opted for a series of increasingly bizarre and pantomime like comedy sub-plots. The Street has always had its share of broad, northern characters, but the latest introductions tend to be one-dimensional Dickensian grotesques, like the gurning Cilla, the roly-poly baker Diggory Compton and the so-camp-heu0026#39;s-off-the-scale Shaun. Hopefully these will develop depth as they progress as for example the character of Les Battersby has done over the years, but there seem to be too many of these cartoon-like characters at the moment. The nadir of this recent trend came with the ridiculously contrived fight between Fred Elliotu0026#39;s son Ashley and the son of a rival butcher, who turned out to be Ashleyu0026#39;s doppleganger even down to his strangulated voice. Inevitably the boxing match between them was overshadowed by a full-scale comedy brawl involving the supporters of the two men which would not have been out of place in a Laurel and Hardy film or an episode of the Benny Hill show. There is danger of a serious mismatch between the serious plot lines, like the plight of agoraphobic Shelley and the slapstick elsewhere.”