Jonathan Harvey interview on Corrie and Beautiful Thing

(This post was originally posted by Flaming Nora on the Coronation Street Blog October 2011, reposted to this blog with permission.)

Coronation Street writer Jonathan Harvey has been interviewed by Pink News about his play Beautiful Thing which is showing at  Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre from November 9th to December 3rd. 

The interview's well worth a read and it's online here but here's what he has to say about writing for Coronation Street:

From Pink News: "One of Harvey’s unquestionable successes has been writing for Coronation Street, the long-running ITV soap first broadcast in 1960. Its then executive producer, who had separately produced three one-off TV dramas written by Harvey, persuaded him to join the programme’s writing team.

“She said I’d love it and she was absolutely right,” says Harvey. “It’s a brilliant opportunity to reach a massive audience. The very first episode I wrote in 2004 centred on a character called Todd, who was in the process of getting married to his girlfriend Sarah, but was having a relationship behind her back with another guy. In the episode I wrote he told Sarah he couldn’t go ahead with the wedding because he thought he was gay. That episode got 13m viewers! When Beautiful Thing first opened the theatre could only hold 80!

“As a writer you spend a lot of time writing stuff that never gets made. With Coronation Street every time I write something I know it’s going to be on television in eight weeks time. There’s also a huge amount of mutual support among the show’s writers, which is great.”

Having written for many of Britain’s most famous actors and actresses, including Catherine Tate and Dawn French, I ask him if there’s anyone left he’d like to write for.

“I’d love to work with Julie Walters,” he answers. “I’ve sent her a few things in the past, but she’s always turned me down. I imagine she’s probably sick of me asking her by now, but I’d still love to work with her.”

Ooh, let's hope that Julie Walters will give in soon and turn up on Coronation Street one of these days. We already know Corrie producer Phil Collinson is keen to have on the show too.

Find out more about Jonathan Harvey