The Road to Coronation Street

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Coronation Street. It was the rival BBC that commissioned ITV to make this television movie which was first broadcast on BBC4.

Scripted by Daran Little who was a fan of Coronation Street who went on to become an archivist of the show and later a writer.

The framing is how a young gobby actor turned writer Tony Warren (David Dawson) managed to persuade Harry Elton the Canadian producer of Granada TV to make a drama series about the back streets of Manchester. The kind of streets that Tony had grown up in.

Rewriting a script called Florizel Street that had previously been rejected by the BBC. Harry Elton had to persuade the Granada heads, the Bernstein brothers to go with the idea. They were not initially keen on the idea, preferring more arty projects or cheap sitcoms.

Once the project got the go ahead. They had the difficulties in casting the actors. Tony Warren wanted northerners, people from in and around Manchester. The key characters were Elsie Tanner, Annie Walker and Ena Sharples.

A love letter to the soap opera. It was made just before Granada left its studio complex at Quay Street. The key part of it was the casting process. Celia Imrie smiling knowingly as Doris Speed when told that she would have to act older. It later transpired that the actress Doris Speed had chopped some years off her real age.

The problems of casting for Ena Sharples. Lynda Baron who was a busty sex symbol in Open All Hours catches all the nuances of Violet Carson. I remember being frightened as a kid just watching Ena Sharples on the screen.

The plum role belonged to Jessie Wallace. The Eastenders stalwart had to northern up as Pat Phoenix, who like the brassy Elsie Tanner had been around the block.

Nostalgic, this was warm and witty. It was well acted by all the cast including James Roache who played the then young and rather wet William Roache, his father.

Tony Warren should be knighted because no other British writer has accomplished so much since William Shakespeare. His creation of the beloved British series, Coronation Street, is the story for this film with casting, writing, and fighting behind the scenes to get this series in production. It wasn't easy but Tony Warren believed in this visionary realistic portrait of Northern British life with Northern British actors and not London actors who were well-trained in the theater. His characters such as Annie Walker, Ena Sharples, Elsie Tanner, and Ken Barlow are legendary British television figures. Ken Barlow is still the longest running male character since December 1960 with the original actor in the role. Pat Phoenix's Elsie Tanner was a stunning beauty past her prime but nevertheless but one of the most beautiful vixens on television. But the heart of soul of the street belong to battle axe Ena Sharples (played by the wonderful, difficult Violet Carson). When they had to recast, Tony Warren described her as a nightmare but when she arrived at Granada for her audition. She was nevertheless made for the role as Ena Sharples. Lynda Baron does a superb job as does Celia Imrie for bringing Doris Speed to life and Jessie Wallace who does a fantastic job in bringing Elsie Tanner to life. The story is enchanting how Tony's vision came to be. The street's not the same as it once was in the beginning but still it's an enduring part of British and world television. I only wished that they aired Coronation Street in America as well.

We should not be surprised that Coronation Street was hard to sell - especially by a 23-year old unknown who had only worked on radio. Someone quotes Hitchcock's definition of drama: 'life with the boring bits cut out'. "And you're giving us the boring bits only" he complains to the irrepressible Tony Warren.

Granada TV boss Sidney Bernstein (Steven Berkoff) weighs up the opposing arguments with suitable gravitas and gives it the nod. Up goes the familiar street-set, complete with cobbles, as specially demanded by Tony, and the casting sessions go ahead. Doris Speed and Violet Carson both remember Tony as a boy, not too favourably, but they are intrigued enough to give it a try for his sake.

The casting of the film itself is quite successful, whether or not you think it's cheating to bring on William Roache's son as the man himself; the family resemblance is strikingly evocative. Jane Horrocks turns in a good, brisk performance as the casting director, while Christian McKay as producer Harry Elton manages to give away a sly hint that Tony's fairly obvious gaiety may have played some part in swaying opinion. At one point, Tony tells Jessie Wallace (as a badly miscast Pat Phoenix) to stop being a drama queen, and she says "I will when you will".

One nice touch is the elderly tea-lady, giving an informal vote in favour, while catching a minute or two of the pilot-episode. But she thinks the original title 'Florizel Street' sounds too much like bathroom cleaner. This unofficial piece of audience research leads to 'Coronation Street', which I still think an odd name, unlikely to relate to 1953, but probably to an older and more deferential age.

Tony Warren (David Dawson) was a struggling twenty-three old actor with limited radio experience, who responded to another casting rejection by transforming himself into a writer. Through a combination of sheer persistence and chutzpah, he managed to convince producer Harry Elton (Christian McKay) to back the idea for a new drama series set in a Manchester terrace, with the emphasis on real people's lives. After a shaky start, when the idea was rejected by Granada Television's chief executive Sidney Bernstein (Steven Berkoff), Warren was eventually commissioned to write thirteen episodes. The rest, as they say, is history.

Charles Sturridge's production is not without its anachronisms. The sets are too chintzy, their bright colors creating a never-never land of early Sixties Manchester. Some of the dialogue is resolutely contemporary; and the relationship between Tony and Harry is far closer than would have been tolerated at a time when homosexuality was still illegal.

Daran Little's script favors cardboard characterization: brothers Sidney and Cecil Bernstein (Henry Goodman) are the archetypal studio heads sitting behind desks in their expensive three-piece suits. All they need is a cigar in their mouths and they could pass for the old studio heads in classical Hollywood. Dawson's Tony Warren has the camp manners of a youthful Kenneth Williams; he develops a close relationship with Patricia Phoenix (Jessie Wallace) that acts a substitute for that of his real mother (Phoebe Nicholls).

The drama is redeemed to some extent by the quality of individual performances. Celia Imrie's Doris Speed captures some of the actress's faux gentility; but the script does not really allow her to develop her performance. Jessie Wallace makes a brave stab at Patricia Phoenix, but does not really understand the combination of down-at-heel awareness and indomitable spirit that made Phoenix such a legend among CORONATION STREET fans.

The only real star turn is Lynda Baron's Violet Carson; a remarkable person in her own right, who made a career for herself as "Aunty Vi" on radio's CHILDREN'S HOUR, Carson was brought in at the last moment to play Ena Sharples. Reputedly a difficult person to work with, she was nonetheless a remarkable performer who understood what Ena's life was about. In THE ROAD TO CORONATION STREET Baron recaptures this quality, especially when she faces the cameras for the first time and delivers Warren's script. To those of us who fondly remember Carson, this was a quite remarkable impersonation.

I've just finished an on-line viewing of this opus on the CBC's website and thoroughly enjoyed it. I think it's well-acted, well-done and worthwhile: "Coronation Street" is a national, even international, phenomenon, and seeing its very beginnings is at least educational. It's interesting that William Roache is played by one of the Roache family--the actor himself felt that the show he had been cast in was only to run 13 episodes. The woman who plays Pat Phoenix was, I think, better-looking than the actual actress, and played here with conviction: Pat Phoenix was about to quit her acting career when offered the role of Elsie Tanner. That the show was conceived and initially pushed forward by a man, Tony Warren, who felt strongly that he had something to say that others would want to see shows the power of perseverance. As a long-time "Street" watcher, I am glad he, and those who supported him, got what they wanted.