Coronation Street

I agree that Sarah has gone downhill, they need to give her a rest or write her out soon.

Saw this over at Digital Spy Forums



Im not sure if that is such good news to be honest. Im glad about Steve Frost and think he will do a good job, but im not sure about Kieran Roberts.

Yes I agree, I think the show needs fresh blood, although if a storyline to 'the same magnitude' as the Richard Hillman saga is being planned it may not be as bad as we thought. That quote reminds me, when will they begin to use the ITV Production endcaps? I assume in January, when the network rebrands. It will be weird seeing Corrie end without the Granada endcap.

Anyway, I agree about previous comments about Sarah. There was only so much they could do with the character, she has been through everything, I suppose they wanted to tone her down by putting her with Scooter and we all know what a big success that was. So now they're making her a nasty character. Poor Violet. I love her. One of very few great castings they've made in recent times. She's a wonderful actress and criminally underused,as is Eilleen, in favour of the awful twins, Diggory etc. What's going on? The cast is far too big and it needs to be cut and good characters need to be more developed. The new producer definitely needs to take out the axe because they are going to have to seriously look at the cast and ask themselves do they really need some of them?

If they want to develop another "Richard Hillman" type plot then it will take the same length of time as before - about a year (that's the good thing about Corrie - they don't rush).......but I can't see anything at the moment that could develop in such a way.

I suppose the Battersby-Brown's are gearing up to replace Jack & Vera ("his little swamp duck") as the comedy couple when Bill & Liz finally throw in the towel.

Corrie have (by-and-large) managed to stay top of the ratings in 2005, even though they are trying abit too hard sometimes with 5 episodes a week. I think it might be better to slim down the cast and have 2 x Monday, 1 x Wed/Fri. Leave Sunday to Emmerdale for them to do specials if needs be.

Apparently Emmerdale's Stan Richards suffered from emphysemia (lung disease). Doesn't bode well for poor old Liz Dawn. Sad but true.

Anyway, I too agree with the Sarah situation - but I still fancy Tina O'Brien, so I'm confused.

No need to cut the episodes - that's a lazy excuse - though any more than 5 a week is too many!

The biggest problem is the cast is too big, with far too many "none-central" characters. You look at the principal characters in Home and Away and the cast list numbers around 20, probably half of Corries!

Let's think about the viewers, many would be delighted that they wouldn't have to try and keep up with five episodes, it would also relieve the work load for the cast and in turn, lowere the number of the cast because not all would be needed because they had less episodes to make per week.

IMO they need to reduce the cast by at least 20 - there are something like 60 characters at the moment which is too many. And I do think they need to cut the amount of episodes down to 3 a week as well.

Kieran Roberts always takes full credit for the RIchard Hillman storyline, yet Jane McNaught was still producer when Hillman was introduced and Carolyn Reynolds oversaw a large part of the storyline, not to mention all the writers.

Even The sun/The mirror Slamed Corrie this week,IF they slam it,it has to be bad

Anyone like to list them all, to see if there really is 60?

Surely got to be more exciting than discussing how many episodes a week there should be, like you do every single week?

Surely a bonus of such a large cast is that if you don't like a certain cast member, they arn't on all the time, unlike EastEnders where Alfie Moon seems to be in every storyline.

Plus, with lots of oldies, you can't really expect the likes of Emily Bishop or Betty to be in major storylines at their age. This oldie factor probably adds to the cast quantity issue.

If that is the case why is it there isn't a week that goes by that that doesnt feature Les & Cilla? Corrie's problem is it over uses some characters (The Battersbys, Sarah Platt...) and under uses others (Eileen, Violet).

The wedding does seem to have taken a massive critical panning. Hopefully the producers will take note.

Here goes; (in no particular order)

1. Penny King
2. Mike Baldwin
3. Danny Baldwin
4. Frankie Baldwin
5. Jamie Baldwin
6. Ken Barlow
7. Deirdre Barlow
8. Tracy Barlow
9. Adam Barlow
10. Blanche Hunt
11. Violet Wilson
12. Shelly Unwin
13. Bev Unwin
14. Norris Cole
15. Rita Sullivan
16. Emily Bishop
17. Betty Williams
18. Cilla Battersby
19. Les Battersby
20. Chesney Brown
21. Fiz Brown
22. Kirk Sutherland
23. Maria Sutherland
24. Molly Compton
25. Diggory Compton
26. Fred Elliot
27. Ashley Peacock
28. Claire Peacock
29. Vera Duckworth
30. Jack Duckworth
31. Tyrone Dobbs
32. Jason Grimshaw
33. Sean Tully
34. Eileen Grimshaw
35. Sally Webster
36. Kevin Webster
37. Rosie Webster
38. Sophie Webster
39. Sunita Alahan
40. Dev Alahan
41. Gail Platt
42. Sarah Platt
43. David Platt
44. Steve McDonald
45. Liz McDonald
46. Craig Harris
47. Keith Appleyard
48. Jessie
49. Joanne
50. Audrey Roberts
51. Charlie Stubbs
52. Roy Cropper
53. Hayley Cropper
54. Leanne Battersby
55. Janice Battersby
56. Yana
57. Nathan
58. Jimmy Clayton
59. Ronnie Clayton
60. Lloyd Mullaney
61 Scooter
62 Phil
63 Kelly Crabby
64 Carol Baldwin (she is coming back)


Think thats it; So its actually OVER 60

Ive not included the youngers kids like Amy and Josh or Martin, Robyn and Candice because they are leaving next week so its a bit pointless including them.

I predict Les & Cilla won't be on next week?!

I'll do a list for Emmerdale, to see if Corrie really does have too big a cast, or whether it is perfectly normal for a 5 times a week soap