Should Corrie look back to the 1970s for inspiration?

(This post was originally posted by Graeme N on the Coronation Street Blog in December 2013.)


I've been watching a lot of old Corrie episodes from the 1970s lately, thanks to the joy of Youtube. Why they are never given a proper rerun on one of ITV's countless digital channels I'll never know. Anyway, it made me wonder whether the powers that be of the 2010s shouldn't pop onto Youtube themselves.

Should modern day Coronation Street learn a few lessons from days gone by? 

For a start, the collection of characters Corrie had to offer in the mid to late 70s is far fewer than the cast of thousands we watch today. I often struggle to keep track of all the comings and goings and feel that some characters barely get a look in. In the 70s the cast totalled thirty regular actors if that and each and every one of them holds my attention and gets a chance to shine.

The viewers also only got an hour of Weatherfield life each week during the 1970s. Half an hour on Monday, the same on Wednesday. There was no need for double episodes, hour long specials or, heaven forbid, special weeks with Corrie broadcast every night. Yes I know there were only three channels at the time, but Corrie's viewing share was still immense. Less was more. A cliffhanger on a Wednesday evening would have the viewing public hanging on tenterhooks until the next episode the following week. These days, as I've often said I can miss several episodes without worrying that I'm missing out.

Everything in the 70s seemed to move at a slower pace too. We can probably count the major disasters, events and incidents on one hand for the 1970s. In contrast, the Weatherfield of today seems to be increasingly explosive, dramatic and 
bizarre in a desperate attempt to keep us watching. In the 70s a wedding or a funeral would take place without an explosion, a murder or a punch up at the reception or wake. These events resembled the weddings or funerals of the viewers who tuned in loyally each week, and that's why it worked. These days Corrie weddings take place at grand country houses and most congregations are subjected to a dramatic intrusion or an explosive secret tearing a family apart. 

Some could say the content of Corrie episodes from the 1970s was a bit dull or that nothing momentous happened. It just feels more real to me, I can believe in the characters and situations. You would never see the majority of an episode in 2013 devoted to a character like Deirdre's forlorn search for council housing, however the sight of Deirdre, Emily and Alf climbing the stairs of a desolate block of flats in January 1979 somehow had me hooked. There was more tension and drama in a scene where Annie Walker found out that Fred Gee had taken forty pounds from the Rovers till than in any one of Tina McIntyre's attention-grabbing trysts.

Maybe I'm just old fashioned and in the minority on this one, I don't know. I know modern soap operas are not supposed to reflect real life and most people don't want to see their own boring day to day existences, they want escapism. However I want to believe in the characters, empathise with them and understand their problems. 

Is that not what working class, continuing drama is all about?



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