Coronation Street

A couple of months ago Eva mentioned Salford twice in one scene! She definitely mentioned the Salford Precinct and the other one was Salford Quays or something like that.

I agree and I think that was certainly the case until very recently, when a few writers bizarrely started to mention Salford within the programme. Jonathan Harvey for example wrote Roy as saying he ran "a backstreet café in Salford" and had Jason say he was "an ordinary Salford lad" in the same ep. I was always led to believe Salford didn't exist in Corrieland.

I used to be a bit of a Corrie history buff and Weatherfield was always BASED on Salford, ie it was a town of similar size to it.

In an episode two nights ago in my region, Salford was referred to when a discussion was taking place between Roy, Haleigh and Roy's Mother regarding the number of casinos in the Manchester zone!

Why do contributors to this endless dirge not grasp that, as Corrie is a fictitious street, there is NO PRECISE ANSWER to where it is supposed to be located?

As it is written by a constantly-changing stream of different people, there may not be consistency as to whether they acknowledge Salford or Manchester. What they said a year ago might differ from what they said a week ago - it DOESN'T MATTER.

It is a drama, penned by people who don't really give much thought to where on a map you would stick a pin - especially as they are about to move production from one place to another and everyone will just keep PRETENDING it's the same place.

It ill-behoves members of TV Forum to have such a poor grasp of the nature of soap opera fiction.

Coronation Street is fiction???????????? Noooooooo.

My earlier post still applies. In the world of Coronation Street, there is a town called Weatherfield. Coronation Street is a street in Weatherfield. There is a Wikipedia article all about it.

You've twice now fallen over yourself to correct someone for asserting one set of fictional things against your version of fictional things. You've suggested that "there is a Wikipedia article all about it", as if that particular organ was the home of absolute truths, moreover that the memorialisation of made up things in a soap on Wiki makes it more accurate than another version of fiction.

Some people might have different ideas from you. As the show isn't real you should probably be more relaxed about that point.

I think the whole reason why we're debating the whole Salford issue is because a meticulous and intricate "backstory" for the show was created and published in several official tie-in books during the 1980s/90s. There are really nerdy (for want of a better word) bits and pieces in each of them, including Ordnance Survey-style maps and the whole shebang, all of which give the impression that Weatherfield was largely based on Salford - indeed, the impression was created on-screen over the years that Salford did not actually exist in the programme's "universe" (or whatever the word is).

That is not to say that the scriptwriting team can't revise history - they can, there's nothing stopping them. As you say (and I agree), it's just a fictitious soap opera. It's just that when things have been solidly laid down in history (on-screen and off), you expect that continuity to remain.

No big deal though, and definitely nothing to argue about, surely?

The Wikipedia point was merely an addendum.

This argument is a lot like the one that exists concerning which state Springfield is set in on The Simpsons (presumably, by your logic, if you believe it to be set in Timbuktu, it must be).

Anyone with a brain cell could work out that Coronation Street is set in Weatherfield. Will this BBC News article allay your fears that it may be set in McUckachagwe?

If it doesn't matter to Tony Warren, surely it shouldn't matter to anyone else...



http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2010/dec/09/coronation-street-manchester-north-west

The question the Queen is asking there is essentially "What street is it based on?". He is telling her it isn't based on one street, and is a microcosm representing many streets or areas.