Coronation Street

The more I think about it the more I think pairing Rita and Ken up together makes a lot more sense.

They've known eachother nearly 50 years, they both have a certain love for the area and the people around them. Rita's feisty nature would be a good foil to the more retiring Ken and it would be a really good way of showing that people can have an intimate relationship in the final years of their life if the writers played it right. Naturally creates some conflict between Tracy and Jenny alongside it and could really begin to set up for the future.

If you really wanted to have a bit of a comedy element to it they could struggle to be compatible sexually until they hire and escort/sex coach who turns out to be a local street resident.

Ken and Rita did actually get together briefly in the early 1970s. He was a teacher at the school her stepchildren went to although it turned out she wasn't actually married to the father, Harry Bates. She ended up having an affair with Len but did get together with Ken briefly later on but I believe he dumped Rita for his second wife Janet. Rita then married Len a few years later.

I think putting them together for the sake of it would ruin the legacy of both characters.

Exactly. Especially as they had a fling years ago, it didn't work out but they have been lifelong friends ever since. Im surprised not many people remember Rita was one of Ken's 25(or however many it is by now) girlfriends!

I must say, your script-writing ideas shown throughout this and the other Soaps thread are bizarre. You suggest Ken and Rita to pair up and hire an escort?

Well, I suppose stranger things have happened.............

Keep coming with the imaginative plots.

- More Corrie seems to have landed on Britbox under the tag 'Jollie Corrie holidays' - a few are episodes that have already been uploaded but a few seem to be new. The Coach Trip is among them. A few of the uploads are non-holiday ones as well. Good signs. It doesn't seem to have been overly plugged off platform, but was a big load on my screen (presumably as I watched most of the ones already up.)

Puts the current list in full as the following (i will update this unless it gets too long) (think it's about 55 episodes)

9 December 1960 - First Episode
11 July 1962 - Bill leaves after Elsie finds out he's married
30th August 1967 - Elsie tells he Hewitts they can come to her and Steve's upcoming wedding/wedding preparations
3 July 1968 - Stan and Hilda go to a Chinese Restaurant
30 September 1968 - Elsie suspected after Steve is found dead
29 October 1969 - The Coach Crash
14 October 1974 and 16 October 1974 - the girls go to Majorca
2 March 1977 - Bet finds out that Anne is Mike's mistress and has kids
14 November 1977 - Stan and Hilda's second honeymoon
13 February 1978 - Stan gets a valentines card and Hilda turns detective
26 May 1980 - Stan and Hilda get the flu
14 September 1981 - A Mr and Mrs competition is held at the rovers - Stan and Hilda and Jack and Vera enter
21 February 1983 - The episode where Diedre tells Ken about the affair
4 May 1983 - Bet and Betty get stranded in a lake
25 May 1983 - Jack goes on the infamous date that turns out to be Vera
12 September 1983 - Jack and Vera move into No 9
24 November 1984 - Stan's Funeral.
2 January 1985 - Hilda advertises for a lodger
18 June 1986 - Bet wakes up in the rovers while it's on fire
12 August 1987 - Bet and Alec go to Torremilinos
25 December 1987 - The Street says farewell to Hilda
15 March 1989 - Alan Bradley tormenting Rita
8 December 1989 - Alan Bradley's death
25 December 1989 - Diedre finds out about Ken's affair with Wendy Crozier
24 December 1990 - Sally goes into Labour
27 March 1992 - Raquel holds a dinner party
30 April 1993 - Reg Holdsworth's waterbed
24 December 1993 - Terry tries to sell his baby
3 November 1995 - Jack and Vera take over the Rovers
8 December 1995 - Raquel's big decision over Curly and Des
13 November 1996 - Curly and Raquel have a heart to heart
9 February 1998 - Alma holds a dinner party
29 March 1998 - Diedre's Trial verdict
6 July 1998 - Roy and Hayley; first date
14 February 1999 - Roy asks Haley a question at valentine's disco
25 October 2000 - Curly and Emma go to Raquel's chateu
20 August 2001 - Jack and Vera anniversary
26 December 2001 - The police are after Terry
21 January 2002 - A blood blank arrives on the street
6 January 2003 - Tracy lets slip to Blanche about Diedre's dalliance with Dev
24 February 2003 - Richard Hillman's confessional
12 March 2003 - Richard Hillman properly loses the plot
16 April 2004 - Steve and Karens wedding
24 May 2004 - Gail and Jason find out Todd is gay
25 October 2004 - Dev and Sunita's wedding
24 November 2004 - Mad Maya's moment to shine
8 April 2005 - Ken and Diedre's second wedding
11 May 2009 - Dev's nude potrait
30 April 2010 - Roy and Hayley get married legally
6 December 2010 - The Tram crashes
12 April 2013 - Sunita's funeral
16 October 2013 - Roy and Hayley's Blackpool trip
18 April 2014 - Ken and Diedre go on holiday
15 July 2016 - Kylie's death
9 May 2018 - Aidan's suicide




It wouldn't be the sake of it. It would be to link the Barlows to the Connors even more through Jenny and provide some serious drama avenues going forward as the likes of Tracy and Peter and Jenny riffing off eachother with regards to Rita and Ken's relationship and when the characters die off would really give some explosive dynamics in the family reactions.



I don't think two elderly people who are a little bit lonely and have known eachother decades as friends taking that to a less platonic level is all that unusual (in fact I know quite a few instances where this has happened and some recently with Covid shielding, which might be a good time to write this in). It's also not that unusual for the sexual element to get more difficult for couples they get older and some may look to find a sex coach/escort as a way round it.

I don't really see this as a bizarre or imaginative plot, handled sensitively and with care it could seem incredibly normal and almost destined to happen. It could even be a heartwarming storyline that gives two characters who've been a bit spare party for far too long their own dynamic resurgence.

Although, I will openly admit I crave a truly sensationalist soap opera with bizarre plot threads that I'm unlikely to get from any of the current outfit, and is sadly not likely to be commissioned any time soon with the apparent death of new soaps being commissioned.

If only you'd read this entire thread from start to finish, we were talking about this on page 44:

see here for it ……..

FORUMS on TVFORUM .UK
20-Jun-2020 @ 16:39

In fact, you were there at the time! Also good fun if you would like to watch the first episode.

As mentioned both then and in the discuss again on page 212 - the issue lies in that whilst the broadcast may already be out of copyright, the actual episode might not be as an 'original dramatic work.' I don't think anyone's been arsed enough to take this to court though.

You’re taking us all to plutonic levels. I needed oxygen to read that post.

Do people Ken will be killed off for the 60th anniversary?

William Roache is 88 this year, Betty Driver must be one of the only Coronation Street actress/actors to still be regularly in the show much older than that? Realistically Bill can't be that far from retirement now and it's better to let the character bow out with a bang rather than be killed off-screen because of the ongoing pandemic meaning he can't come back full time for a while.

They keep talking up a big community event for the 60th anniversary, surely the death of character who has lived on the street for more than 60 years (80 years if memory serves right) and has had as many interactions with the community as Ken would be a big community event that could be shown over the course of 3-5 special 1 hour episodes or something similar?

Ken isn't going to be killed off until Bill Roache himself either dies or gets too ill to continue, I'd be very suprised if it ends up being otherwise.

Are you counting the picture of Betty in the Rovers as appearing in the show? She died in 2011, and the character died in April 2012.