Cruising in the Canaries with Corrie's Fred, I say, Fred

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

Fancy a cruising holiday with Fred Elliott, I say, Fred? Course, you do, right?

John Savident, who played the larger-than-life butcher Fred Elliott in Coronation Street joins  an all-star cast of television and radio celebrities on a cruise to the Canary Islands and Madeira next month. 

The October 14 cruise will have soap stars past and present from EastEnders, Coronation Street and Emmerdale onboard.

During the 15-night cruise there will be plenty of opportunities to meet stars and to hear stories of behind-the-scenes incidents, both funny and disastrous.

Mike Hall, CMV's Head of Marketing, said: "This is a rare opportunity to cruise with a number of Britain's favourite soap characters. "Passengers can enjoy exciting talks, amusing tales from behind the camera and fascinating personal life stories - all in addition to a great variety of interesting and attractive ports of call."


Star guests announced include Derek Martin (Charlie Slater from EastEnders); Laila Morse (‘Mo’ in EastEnders & I`m A Celebrity); Ian Sharrock (Jackie Merrick in Emmerdale); John Savident (Fred Elliott in Coronation Street); Pete Moran (Coronation Street); Allen Mechen (Brookside) Jeffrey Holland & Judy Buxton (Crossroads & On The Up) and Sunny Ormonds (Lilian Bellamy in The Archers).

For more information go to cruiseandmaritime.com


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Fab Photo Friday - An ace up their sleeve?

It must have been some sort of guessing game along with whatever cards were in their hands! Fred, Audrey, Emily and Norris play a hand of cards in the pub!

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The Darth Vader effect on Coronation Street

In this week's awards, I mentioned the Darth Vader Effect relating to Johnny discovering he is Carla's biological father. She'll find out soon enough. This isn't the first time it's happened on Coronation Street and is a fairly standard soap plot that rears its head every so often.

On Coronation Street, Mike Baldwin is the king of the Darth Vader effect, with all three of his sons discovering who their biological father was and Mike knowing about only one of them. Most often it's the fathers who discover previously unknown children because mothers know they've given birth. It's hard to keep that fact from them though if a baby was switched in the hospital, they may not realise the child they raise is their own. But let's not get into that!

Other typical soap scenarios include an older sister or aunt who is really the biological mother of a younger sibling/nephew/niece, or a close relative who is the biological parent, usually father, of someone. We've had the latter in Fred Elliott with his son Ashley but I'm not sure we've had the former situation.

Curly Watts discovered a daughter, Ken Barlow discovered a son (and grandson), Leanne found her mother. For more detail on all of these, and more, see State of the Street.

Can you think of any others I might have missed?





Deirdre: A Life on Coronation Street - official ITV tribute to a soap icon. Available here.


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Corrie on Camping

(This post was originally posted by Clinkers (David) on the Coronation Street Blog in March 2015.)

The current chit-chat relating to Corrie's current one-man campfest, Callum 'who dear? me dear?' Logan serves to remind us of the show's historical fey (as opposed to 'Faye') undertones.

They have always been there of course, right from day one with Elsie archly commenting on her own looks. Tony Warren ensured that a certain camp aesthetic ran through the script and at a time when there was no possibility of a gay character on t'cobbles, it was down to the ladies to help lighten the load.

Although the idea of Albert Tatlock swishing into the Rovers with a clutch bag or Ken holding court in the Rovers 'a la Kenneth Williams' would have been fun. Instead we had brassy 'n' bad Elsie, tart with a heart Bet and snobby Annie on hand to provide the knowing looks and cutting one-liners. To this day, the tradition continues in the form of Sally, Liz, Julie and Carla.

As with Callum and the wonderful Jez Quigley, camp doesn't have to mean gay. Corrie has had some delightfully 'light' characters tripping across the cobbles down the years. Norris Cole has been a bastion of camp for almost 20 years. He is a sniffy old woman disguised under a tank top. Any camper and he would be folding his arms under his bosoms and sniffing loudly. Norris isn't 'fun' camp though. He's Ena Sharples for the new Millennium.

Alec Gilroy and Fred Elliott also provided us with numerous camp moments. These were probably down to, particularly in John Savident's case, a theatrical style of performance. Savident always delivered Fred's lines as though it was to the back row of the London Palladium (see also Yasmeen Nazir). This exaggerated style became synonymous with Fred and was part of the character's charm. Alec too was camp writ large, with his endless fussing.

Of the younger cast, there aren't all that many characters, other than Sean, who have had a touch of the Charles Hawtreys. Steve is possibly the closest, thanks to the slightly over-the-top facial expressions and his tendency to opt for a high vocal in some scenes. Dev continues the fine tradition of Fred Elliott with his booming performances and occasional fey mannerisms. Those two aside though, the blokes are pretty much blokey.

For those who worry about another week of Callum sweeping across the cobbles with all the swagger and bravado of Celia Johnson circa 1946, here's two words for you. Greg Kelly.

Cast your mind back to the somewhat unbelievable macho man, seed of Les Battersby, who caused the faktry girls to coo and flutter their eyelids and who eventually bedded Sally. Poor old Greg. No wonder he was so unhappy, mincing around Weatherfield, desperate to order a Cinzano and lemon in the Rovers or rifle through Sally's Bananarama CDs. If you think Callum is the Street's campest ever baddy, then revisit the Greg Kelly years. Even Frankie Howerd would have raised a glass of sherry in admiration.  Watch him on YouTube here.

By Clinkers to Riddle



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Video: Should Corrie have more scenes like this?

(This post was originally posted by Llifon on the Coronation Street Blog in February 2013.)

Although I'd seen this scene in the full episode on YouTube a few weeks ago, it was only recently that I found out that someone had taken the scene out and produced it as its own clip, which great.

The episode was originally broadcast on the 3rd of January 1999. The residents are all taking the news that former shopkeeper, former mayor and pillar of the community Alf Roberts has died.

Here we have Jim McDonald, Jack and Vera Duckworth, Fred Elliott, Ken Barlow and Betty Williams discussing Alf's life and their opinion of him, in a scene, which in my opinion, what makes Corrie shine!

As I watch it, I ask myself: when did I see that happening in Corrie recently? Okay, maybe you get the rarity of seeing it in the cab office or the Kabin, but I'd like to see it more often. Wouldn't you?

Betty Driver often said that with the increasing speed of the show, with more scenes per episode, you lost those great moments of folk talking about nowt! Even though the clip above is only under two minutes, it's still great!

So please Corrie writers and producers, can we have more of those classic Corrie scenes!

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Whatever happened to WARTS?

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

In a recent Corrie when the estate agent was showing the prospective buyer around Fred Elliott's empty butcher shop, Norris popped his oar in as an interested member of the Street's "Neighbourhood Watch".

Anyway, this got me wondering whatever happened to that other august body of Corrie business people, WARTS - Weatherfield Area Retail Traders Society? 

Fred was a leading light in that, and also the Square Dealers, and yet both networks seem to have been forgotten about despite the fact that the Street depends on small businesss to survive and there's no business network to support any of them. 

Bring back WARTS!

Santa Fred and his Elf

(This post was originally posted by me on the Coronation Street Blog in December, 2010.)

As this is Christmas week on Canadian Corrie screens, join me in the Wayback Machine for a look at one of my favourite funny scenes from Christmas past. You may recall that Elliott's Butchers had a corner of Freshcos back before the free standing butcher shop was opened in Victoria Street. The two overlapped for a short while but we haven't seen the grocery store shop since and the empire seems to consist of just the one shop, soon to be a memory, it seems.

Anyway, one Christmas Fred got a job lot of reindeer meat that he was trying to flog to the customers and made Ashley dress up like an elf to distribute samples. I don't know how Steven Arnold managed to keep a straight face in this scene, part of which went something like this:

Fred: "COME ON ASHLEH! SHIFT YERSELF!" (Ashley approaches) "Excellent!"
Ashley can't hear with the rubber ears on: "You wha?"
Fred tries again "EXCELLENT!"
Ashley: "Well you might think so".
Fred, handing him a plate of meat samples on toothpicks "Now the world awaits the latest innovation from Elliott's so get mingling.  And think on..If anybody asks what it is, remember it's sommat new but don't tell 'em what it is until they've  actually 'ad a taste. You know what folk are like...they've got small minds!"

Curly approaches, takes the mick out of Ashley and tries the sample and is subsequently horrified that it's reindeer though it was tasty. Fred points out that it's cheap, low in fat and high in protein. Curly allows it, but reminds them to keep it away from Santa's Grotto!

Golden!

In rememberence of Ashley Peacock and Fred Elliott.

Corrie Fab Photo Fred

I was looking through my Corrie images (you end up with quite a collection when you write for blogs!) and these two jumped off the screen. I thought they might bring back some fun memories. The photo above looks like Fred is just carrying on as he often did, postulating about something to Sunita. But no...what's happening is he felt a drop or two of water fall on him from the ceiling. This is what happened next!