Video: Watch Coronation Street's Mannequin Challenge

(This post was originally posted by Flaming Nora on the Coronation Street Blog November 2016, reposted to this blog with permission.)

Coronation Street's cast and crew have been having a go at the mannequin challenge, the latest social media craze.  Just when you hadn't got over 'planking' now comes the craze for standing perfectly still, just like a mannequin.

The challenge takes place inside No. 1 at the Barlow's and shows some of the cast and crew filming Christmas scenes - without moving.

It's definitely worth a little look although you will need to view it on facebook by clicking the ITV Corrie link below:

The cast and crew have a go at the latest social craze!



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Corrie cast seniority ranking

(This post was originally posted by Tvor on the Coronation Street Blog in August 2014.)

I was looking up the name of the actor that plays Neil Beckett on Corrie, using the entertainment bible, IMDB (Internet Movie Database). They have a very good and complete cast list for Coronation Street, including writers and directors but on the main page, they have a listing of most of the current cast members.

But I looked at it a bit closer. First I thought the cast was listed by seniority but it's not. No, it's a list in order of number of appearances and Helen Worth, who plays Gail (multiple last names) is at the top.

Top 10 actors as ranked by number of episodes as of this morning on IMDB:

Helen Worth - Gail McIntyre (1,682 episodes, 1974-2014)
Simon Gregson  - Steve McDonald (1,654 episodes, 1989-2014)
William Roache - Ken Barlow (1,510 episodes, 1960-2014)
Sue Nicholls - Audrey Roberts (1,390 episodes, 1979-2014)
Sally Dynevor - Sally Webster(1,387 episodes, 1986-2014)
Anne Kirkbride - Deirdre Barlow (1,380 episodes, 1972-2014)
Barbara Knox - Rita Sullivan (Tanner) (1,339 episodes, 1964-2014)
Jennie McAlpine - Fiz Stape (1,218 episodes, 2001-2014)
Samia Ghadie - Maria Connor (1,201 episodes, 2000-2014)
Michael Le Vell - Kevin Webster (1,153 episodes, 1981-2014)

The list wasn't completely correct for names of married female characters (i.e. they had Maria listed as Sutherland not Connor and Gail listed as Platt not McIntyre) which I've corrected for this list. I was a bit surprised that Gail was at the top in one way but not in another as she's featured more solidly in a lot of storylines over many years where a longer term character like Ken Barlow has really not had large long term involved storylines in a very long time.

Now, as fellow blogster Graeme N has discovered, Corriepedia has a different list of episode seniority which makes a lot more sense than the above from IMDB. (My heart is broken! I thought they had it right for everything!!) According to this, and resorted by episodes, the top ten by episode ranking are:

William Roache - Ken Barlow        4114
Helen Worth - Gail McIntyre         3813
Barbara Knox -  Rita Tanner         3426
Anne Kirkbride - Deirdre Barlow    3333
Eileen Derbyshire - Emily Bishop   3241
Sue Nicholls  - Audrey Roberts      2741
Sally Dynevor - Sally Webster       2720
Simon Gregson - Steve McDonald 2682
Michael Le Vell -  Kevin Webster   2627
Jack P. Shepherd - David Platt      1822

Of the current cast members by seniority the list looks a bit different. I noticed that Malcom Hebden is listed as 1974 - 2014 but in my mind that doesn't give him seniority as he was, A. A different character in 1974 and B. there was 20 years between his appearance as Spanish Carlos and his introduction as Norris Cole in 1994.

The seniority list for the top handful with dates listed before 1980:
William Roach 1960
Eileen Derbyshire 1961
Barbara Knox 1964
Anne Kirkbride 1972
Helen Worth 1974
(Malcom Hebden 1974)
Sue Nicholls 1979

See the IMDB list here.

So there you have it. I think I shall be consulting the excellent Corriepedia for Corrie stats from now on!




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Video: Corrie cast sing Fairytale of Weatherfield for Text Santa

Every year in the UK there's a charity fund raiser at Christmas called Text Santa and the Corrie cast and crew do a little production just for it. Here is the video to watch the Coronation Street cast singing Fairytale of Weatherfield for ITV's Text Santa.

By the wonders of YouTube, you can watch it right here:


You can read our special lyrics of the Weatherfield version of Fairytale of New York here.

Text Santa raise funds for charities including - Age UK, Barnardo’s, BeatBullying, British Heart Foundation, CLIC Sargent and Help the Hospices.




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Pics: Corrie cast at Julie Hesmondhalgh's leaving party

(This post was originally posted by Flaming Nora on the Coronation Street Blog November 2013, reposted to this blog with permission.)

Last night, Friday 22 November was Julie Hesmondhalgh's leaving party after she filmed her final scenes on Coronation Street this week as Hayley Cropper. 

Julie's leaving party was held at Duke's 92 in the Castlefield area of Coronation Street and there are some great pictures at the Manchester Evening News website.   Note that some are wearing flashes of red in honour of Hayley.



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Corrie cast members set up in Dispatches sting, says The Mirror

(This post was originally posted by Flaming Nora on the Coronation Street Blog July 2013, reposted to this blog with permission.)

The award winning investigative current affairs programme Dispatches on Channel 4 has stitched up some of the Coronation Street cast good and proper, says The Mirror today.   

Dispatches set up a fake stall at a Celebrity Retreat event offered “luxury” tonics and creams supposedly from Bali, Indonesia. But none of the items was genuine. A blue bottle of “toner” contained nothing but tap water, despite its impressing sounding label “Puttana Aziendale” – which actually translates as “Corporate Prostitute” in Italian.

And the cameras were secretly rolling as stars and executives from Corrie asked for handfuls of free products in exchange for plugs.

However, The Mirror quotes an ITV source saying: “Allegations have been made that are false and highly defamatory, and ITV have written to the producer threatening legal action if they decide to broadcast the programme.”

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Street's make-up lady starts Corrie choir for cast and crew

(This post was originally posted by Flaming Nora on the Coronation Street Blog July 2013, reposted to this blog with permission.)

There's a story in today's Sun that says Coronation Street's started a choir. That bit's true.  The Sun also says, via our old mate Mr Curry Sauce, that the choir's been started by management to boost morale as the Street suffers from actors William Roache and Micheal Le Vell, er, missing in action and the Corrie twitter plugging 'scandal'. 

Well, that's not quite true.

Gilly Walsh works in hair and make-up on Coronation Street and took to twitter today to put the record straight about the Corrie choir.  Gilly's on twitter @gillywalshy and here are her tweets from today.  Gilly was the one who set up the Corrie cast and crew choir - an excellent idea and I can't wait to hear them in full song. I wonder if they'll be better than this!

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Corrie cast glam up 50s style for Simon Gregson charity night

(This post was originally posted by Flaming Nora on the Coronation Street Blog June 2013, reposted to this blog with permission.)

Simon Gregson, who plays Steve McDonald in Coronation Street, hosted a 1950s themed charity event for the charities Proud and Loud Arts and Scotty's Little Solders, of which Simon is patron.

The charity event was themed ‘Gregson’s Diner’ and held at the Palace Hotel in Manchester.

Leading the way was Simon and wife Emma as Grease’s famous couple Danny and Sandy.  The Manchester Evening News has a picture gallery of some of the Corrie cast turning up for the charity night, well worth a look.

The event helped to raise thousands of pounds for two charities close to Simon and Emma’s hearts, Proud and Loud Arts and Scotty’s Little Soldiers.



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Keeping the Corrie regulars regular

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

I wonder if anyone else feels the same way as I do? Coronation Street seems to be following a strange pattern at the moment. Certain characters and stories seem to dominate to the extent that we often don't see half the cast for months on end. I don't remember it ever being like this before.

Back in the day Corrie truly did feel like a repertory company. Everyone had their moment and all the regulars were erm regular! Occasionally actors took time off so characters took holidays, however this was always explained in the plot. However these days characters disappear into that Corrie Cupboard with little or no explanation.

Yes, I know the Corrie cast is more than double what it used to be in the 1970s and 1980s but it really does feel sometimes that some of the cast are little more than well paid extras. I find it frustrating when we only catch glimpses of terrific, longstanding characters like Sally or Audrey while both the Price and the Windass families seem to appear in nearly every episode at the moment. When Jenna and Sophie appeared the other night I had almost forgotten they were in my favourite soap, and as for Emily, that's been an awful long shift volunteering at Weatherfield General!

I know some big stories do dominate from time to time and rightly so. However the key to Corrie's success has always been its sense of community spirit. These days most of the characters seem to be travelling on their own separate tracks and they rarely collide.

Also, what we do see are the same characters interacting with each other all the time. It's always the Price family in the Bistro, Carla and Michelle with Rob and Tracy or the extended Windasses. I'd love to see a scene between Carla and Emily Bishop just for the random quirkiness of it all. There must be characters in the show that have never shared scenes together which to me is just bizarre.

Stuart Blackburn has mentioned several times that Corrie needs to remember its roots. I hope this includes re-introducing a sense of community and ensuring more characters get some regular interaction.

Do you agree? As always, I'm interested to hear what you think.



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Who Were the Original Corrie Cast?

(This is the first of a series of wonderful blog posts written by Llifon on the Coronation Street Blog earlier this year, reposted to this blog with permission.)


Starting tomorrow, there'll be a weekly post on the blog chronicling the lives and careers of the original cast of Coronation Street. There were twenty-one (there are four missing from the above photo)  in the cast back in December 1960 and it has been interesting looking at all of them. Some remained in the soap for many years while others left quite early on.

Today, there are two originals in the cast: William Roache (Ken Barlow), who's been in the show since its inception and Philip Lowrie (Dennis Tanner), who was in the show between 1960 and 1968 and returned in 2011. I do hope you'll enjoy reading the profiles! The first original to be featured will be Arthur Leslie who played Jack Walker and that'll be tomorrow.

Do you have memories of the first or early episodes of Corrie?

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Coronation Street cast - my how they've grown!

Here's some of the younger cast of Coronation Street in a 'then and now' blog post.  Weren't they sweet!?

You might also like to see then and now pictures of some of the classic Corrie cast - click here.

David Platt

Sophie Webster

Tyrone Dobbs

Rosie Webster

Steve McDonald

Maria Connor

Kirk Sutherland

Chesney Battersby-Brown

Fiz Stape

Schmeichel