- For the article on the titular street, see Coronation Street (the street itself)
Coronation Street is a long-running British soap opera which is produced by Granada and airs on ITV. It first aired on 9th December 1960 and has been running ever since, with the series celebrating its 60th anniversary in December 2020. It was created by writer and former child actor Tony Warren, who penned the first 13 episodes and then wrote occasional scripts thereafter until the 1970s. The show became a national institution in the United Kingdom and remains popular with the viewing audience to this day, despite a lot of changes made to the show over the years.
The show has led to spin-off shows and tie-in-media such as books and direct-to-video specials. The series gained a spin-off sitcom Pardon the Expression starring Arthur Lowe as Leonard Swindley, which then had a sequel series Turn out the Lights.
In keeping with production of TV at the time, the show was live for its first two months (with taped episodes also made), before then being pre-recorded although relied on very few takes to deal with costs. The show turned to colour in 1969 with occasional black and white episodes, before going colour full-time in 1971. The show is known for its humour and strong characters, as well as more serious character driven plots.
The show was revamped in 1997 to meet the demand of more gritter soaps such as EastEnders and Emmerdale, which were known for hard hitting plotlines, and Corrie stopped being a cosy show that it was know for the past three decades. Despite this it still retained its humour and would often implement comical storylines along with serious ones.
In December 2000 the show celebrated its 40th anniversary with a live special, as a callback to the original days of live television.
For its 50th anniversary in December 2010, the show celebrated with Tram Crash Week and another live special.
The show received a third live special in September 2015 to celebrate 60 years of ITV.
The show celebrated its 60th Anniversary in December 2020, although didn't have a live episode and changes were made due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which had temporarily halted production of the show earlier than year when filming was suspended during the national lockdown.
Other pages[]
- Continuity Errors - mistakes and continuity problems that have happened during the show's run.
- Characters who never got a proper exit from the show