Coronation Street

It looked mostly similar outside though. But to have it in the titles when the last time it was on screen it was on fire would seem a little odd

Watching the 60s episodes is funny when they construct the street set in the studio- the street is so narrow you could barely get a moped down it, let alone a car!

Fire was part of the major overhaul to bring the corrie set up because of the competition from Eastenders, for most of 85/86 it was getting its backside tan by the other side. It took until 1990 before the complete overhaul was finished with the old Factory/Community centre going and a new shop for Rita, 3 house , shops and garage.( I wonder where there got that idea from) and new factory space.

The original set also had the pavement/cobbles painted on to the studio floor, so they usually tried to avoid long shots where people stepped "off" the pavement to cross the road.

Apparently there were occasions where actors inadvertently stood perfectly level whilst appearing to have one foot on the road.

Videotaped location work in today's second ITV3 episode (30/6/86), that's interesting. Maybe filmed at the same time as the fire episode? The previous two episodes had location work on film.

Yes, that can be seen here:

And that clip has alerted me to the fact that the South Bank Show episode of Corrie has surfaced online.



Apparently Melvyn Bragg was trying to get Granada to agree to it for years but it wasn't until they took over LWT that it came to fruition.

It's a great little documentary which was subsequently released commercially. I had it for Christmas that year and get nostalgic watching it because I used to play it often.

Does the middle bit of the theme ever get heard anymore, the melody that's often heard at the start of the credits in pre-1990s episodes? I think it just survived into the early 1990s but after that it's just been the main theme on its own.

It's a nice gentle way of ending an episode, but I suppose it disappeared from a combination of shorter credits and Eastenders' much punchier credit theme.

I'd be interested to know if, when they re-recorded the theme tune in 2010, they recorded the full track or just the broadcast-length edits.

Another tradition was when a major character died there would be no music played over the credits. The first instance of this was Martha Longhurst's death in the Rovers in 1964. Possibly the most recent example of this was the death of Mike Baldwin in 2006?

Here it is in December 2004 when Karen McDonald left Coronation Street:

Location work was on video on today's first episode too (probably shot at the time time as that from the previous episode), back on film by the second episode though.