Cosy crimes and gritty sagas by Corrie Blog editor Glenda, published by Headline. Click pic below!

Monday 31 March 2008

Watch Coronation Street online













Coronation Street fans can watch Corrie on the internet at the Surf The Channel website. Thanks to Corrie fan Susan for that one!

For other ways to watch Coronation Street online, have a look here.

Now then, I'm not sure what the copyright situation is on these sites, just simply pointing out that the sites do exist.

Sunday 30 March 2008

The man who's had seven Corrie roles

You know how some faces on Corrie seem to crop up over again? Well, actor Dave Dutton is a versatile chap, he's been on Coronation Street as seven different characters.

Over the years, Dave's been hit over the head with a frying pan by Mavis Riley.







He's also played Shelley Unwin's uncle Gerald, sold Ken Barlow a replacement for Uncle Albert's sideboard, played a photographer (three times), popped up as an insurance man then a gas man and sold Boomer the dog to Jack Duckworth. Crikey.

Sign up to get Corrie gossip by email

Over at the official website for our favourite soap there's news of a Coronation Street newsletter you can sign up to receive.

They're calling it the Weatherfield Gazette and more information is available here.

The site has also started to include videos of deleted Corrie scenes.

Through the Keyhole on Coronation Street

One of the more unusual items up for sale on the online car boot sale that is eBay is this Through the Keyhole video presented by Lloyd Grossman. I've never seen this before and am half tempted to bid for it myself.

Has anyone seen it? Is it any good?

FAQ: Who is Ryan Thomas' brother?













Questions are coming in to the blog asking if Adam Thomas who plays Donte Charles in the BBC's Waterloo Road is the brother of Ryan Thomas who plays Jason Grimshaw in Coronation Street. I can confirm after some er, extensive online research (aka having a Google) that yes, Adam is indeed Ryan's younger brother.

There are more answers to Frequently Asked Questions right here.

Saturday 29 March 2008

Coronation Street fans vote for Curly's return

Coronation Street fans have voted for their favourite characters to return to the Street and loveable Curly Watts topped the poll as the one most fans would like to see back on the cobbles.

There's been a poll right here on this blog over the last few weeks and more than a whopping 650 Corrie fans have voted for their favourite, living, Corrie character to return to the show if they were in charge and could bring back whomever they wanted.

Curly topped the poll with 213 votes. The other results were as follows, in descending order:

Curly Watts - 213 votes
Hilda Ogden - 125 votes
Spider Nugent - 92 votes
Bet Gilroy - 68 votes
Mavis Riley - 45 votes
Eddie Yeats - 42 votes
Suzie Birchall - 11 votes

And there were 58 votes from Corrie fans who were sulking that their favourite character wasn't listed. Sorry about that! Thanks to everyone who voted. There's a new poll online right now to vote for your current favourite Coronation Street woman.

Liz McMadonna?

The Guardian Guide today did a review of Madonna's upcoming new CD and noted that the Queen of Pop Reinvention appears to be going through her Liz McDonald phase. I can only agree.

There are more Coronation Street look-a-likes here.

Friday 28 March 2008

The sensational Steve McDonald

Sensational. It's not a word that should be bandied about willy-nilly but I think we can stick it on to Steve McDonald at the minute.

Steve has gone from gawky twin teen through to hen-pecked husband and boyfriend of psycho-Tracy. We've seen his more sensitive side on holiday with Eileen in Malta and he's now settling into middle age (spread) with Michelle and being a doting dad to Amy. The comic timing is perfect and I reckon Steve McDonald could become one of the classic Coronation Street men of all time.

Want to see The Steve McDonald Guide to Chatting Up Birds?
Click here.

Sally Webster look-a-like









Anyone else spotted the similiarity between BBC news reader Louise Minchin and Coronation Street's Sally Webster?

There are more Corrie look-a-likes here.

Corrie producer gets top ITV post

Coronation Street is getting a new producer in the form of Kim Crowther and ex-producer Steve Frost (pictured) is moving on and up within ITV. He's to become ITV's new Head of Continuing Drama, says The Guardian today.

Wednesday 26 March 2008

Coronation Street actors' websites

Some of the Coronation Street cast have got their own, official websites.

Here's a short list of the official actors' websites I'm aware of - and if you can add to this list, please leave a comment.


Current cast
Andy Whyment (Kirk Sutherland)
Bill Tarmey (Jack Duckworth)
William Roache (Ken Barlow)
Julia Haworth (Claire Peacock)
Ben Thompson (Ryan Connor)

Not current
Jayne Bickerton (Yana Lumb)
Bradley Walsh (Danny Baldwin)
Julie Goodyear (Bet Lynch)
Alexandra Boyd (Clarissa Mason)

Sally Lindsay in Scallywagga

Since she left Coronation Street after playing Rovers Return barmaid Shelley Unwin, actress Sally Lindsay has been a very busy lady.

Currently signed up to be the voice of Wallace's girlfriend in Wallace and Gromit, Sally is also due to star in a new BBC3 comedy called Scallywagga. The press release says, and I quote, "it's a spanking-new sketch show straight out of the north of England. It's fast paced and innovatively immature enough to appeal to the subversive adolescent in everyone." There's also a promo on YouTube but alas it doesn't feature Sally.

Whatever happened to Sally's A level?

When Sally Webster took up book learning she got more than she bargained for, but such is the way with the women of the Street. She developed a crush on tutor John who was sleeping with daughter Rosie and when husband Kevin found out he thumped John on the cobbles and was sent down for a month.

And so with all the shenanigans that went on, does asnyone know if Sally actually got her A level in the end? What next? An Open University degree in the nutritional value of beans and fishfingers?

Ex-Corrie voiceover for Emmerdale sponsor

The current Coronation Street sponsor is Harvey's Furniture Store and the sponsor for t'other ITV soap is Airwick.

The current Airwick campaign uses an ex-Corrie actress for the voiceover... see if you can guess who it is. Just click here to watch the ad and listen to the familiar voice.

And you can also watch a current Corrie actress advertising cheese, if you like.

Corrie's Becky in Leerdammer Cheese ad

If you think you've spotted Corrie's Becky in a Leerdammer Cheese advert on telly, then you're right, it's her. You can watch actress Katherine Kelly get cheesy in the ad whch is available to watch by clicking right here.

And can you guess the ex-Corrie actress doing the voiceover for this ad?

Corrie Picture Puzzle: Whose Knees are These?

I'm loving the fun stuff that's being emailed in to the blog, more please! Can you name the current Coronation Street woman whose knees these are? Clue: It's not Norris.
There's another Corrie picture puzzle here.

Monday 24 March 2008

Who's your man - Harry or Dan?

Ladies - and men who like this sort of thing - if you had to choose, and I think you know what I mean, who would it be? Harry or Dan? Coronation Street bookie dad or lad?

Coronation Street Weekly Update, March 24 2008

Greetings and welcome to another weekly update. Come in, sit down, put your feet up and take the weight off your face. Relaxed? Settled in? Without any further ado and in true Ramones style, hey-ho, let’s go, and crack on with this week’s Coronation Street update.

It’s been a funny old week for Corrie this week. I wasn’t sure if the writers had eaten too much sugar on the Easter break or whether spring fever had hit the writing room but there was some very weird stuff going on indeed. We were given insights we’d never been given before. Did you know Amy was off her yoghurt? Me neither. Did you know Kirk once wanted a monkey when he was younger and wanted to call it Dirk? It’s a new one on me too. As I said, it’s been a funny week.

Let’s head straight to Weatherfield General where Gail is in solitary confinement in her hospital bed wearing an odd dressing gown and a face full of make-up with a blow-dry hairdo resting on her pillow. It’s amazing what you can get on the NHS these days. She can’t remember what happened or who pushed her which is just as well for David as he gets pulled in to the cop shop and quizzed. Tina lies for David and says he was with her when he was pushing his mother down the stairs. Gail reacts badly to Audrey’s accusations that David was the one who pushed her but Audrey and Bill have got their suspicions, and rightly so. Bill the builder’s got more on his mind as he tries to secure a building contract with Eyeball Tony the Catalogue Man for building work on the new Victoria Street development. Can Bill do it? Yes he can. Whether Tony will give him the work remains to be seen.

Over at the Rovers, all is not well. In addition to Amy being off her yoghurt and wanting to put make-up on Steve, Michelle’s not best pleased.
She’ got a face like a dropped pie (my new favourite expression) when Ryan’s real dad, Nick, takes Ryan away on a surfing holiday to Cornwall. I went to Cornwall once and I’ve never been back. It’s a long way to go from wherever you are. Vernon’s still trying to forge on with his master plan to build a smoker’s shelter in the backyard of the Rovers but when the ever-increasingly-likeable Sean quizzes Vernon on the plans, he admits the builders are in fact a couple of musician mates of his. Apparently, they’re builders-slash-musicians-slash-builders so should at least be able to whistle a decent tune as they swindle Vernon out of Liz’s hard earned cash.

In the pizza place in the precinct, Leanne’s feeling fed up. The restaurant’s losing money and she’s had enough. She jokes to Dan about torching the place up in flames for the insurance money and he thinks she’s mad (she is). These two look set to be an item which means I’ll do a LiaMaria on them and call them LeDanne if they do. Dad Harry finds out from Blanche about Leanne’s past life as an escort girl and doesn’t take too kindly to son Dan copping off with Miss B.

Speaking of Blanche, she’s been kindness itself this week, which as we all know, is very unusual for Mrs Hunt. But I think she sees something in Chesney which she sees in herself, an outcast ready to be put into care at any minute without any warning. When she finds out that Chesney’s coming home from foster care to live with Fiz and Kirk in Cilla’s old house, she pops round with some kind words and footy mags from The Kabin for Ches. Kirk’s overjoyed that Fiz has moved into the house and thinks he’s onto a winner with Fiz back in his life now she's back from her hols. Where's she been? Have a look here to find out. Fiz tries to break it gently to him but there’s no much of “You’re a pillock” that he seems to understand. Ches has been looked after well by his foster parents and even had, with a nod to the Canadian audience, maple syrup on his porridge. I prefer sultanas with mine, or a banana, I’m not that fussed really.

Meanwhile, in Roy’s café, he takes pity on Becky living in the hostel and asks her to move into the flat with him. She’s full of cheeky innuendo and plays Roy up something rotten, bless him. She jokes to anyone who’ll listen that she’s cohabiting with Roy while he’s at pains to point out that she’s lodging in the spare room until Hayley returns. They’re brilliant, Becky and Roy, and together in that flat will take on the world from above the greasy spoon.

And finally this week we learned that Blanche was boycotting her one o’clock club because she’d been asked to jump around to jazzercise. “There are standards,” she moaned to Audrey in the salon. Yes, indeed there are.

And that’s just about that for this week.

Coronation Street writers this week were Mark Burt, Damon Rochefort, Simon Crowther and Peter Whalley.

Glenda
--
Blogging away merrily at http://flamingnora.blogspot.com/

Michelle Keegan pictures

I've already waxed lyrical about Coronation Street newcomer, Michelle Keegan who plays David Platt's girlfriend, Tina McIntrye.

However, this blog post is in response to the very many searches being made on this blog for pictures of Michelle. Now then, I'm a lady of a certain age and this isn't exactly my own cup of tea, but it seems there are plenty of people out there who are looking for more information on the new Corrie woman. And it's my job, as blogger and Corrie fan, to point those searching in the right direction.

So, if you're looking for pictures of Michelle Keegan I suggest you have a look at the unofficial Michelle Keegan website here and of course Tarty Doris.

Coronation Street on Harry Hill's TV Burp

This is another good one from Harry Hill's TV Burp. For other good ones, have a look here. The one below is from Saturday March 22, 2008. He's brilliant, is Harry Hill.

Bruce Jones in Celebrity Wife Swap

Bruce Jones (Les Battersby) and singer Sinnita in Celebrity Wife Swap? I couldn't watch it, it was too much like car-crash TV for my liking. But Ian Wylie of the Manchester Evening News watched it and blogged it and if you want to read his take on it, it's online right here and there's a full, frank and revealing interview with Bruce Jones too.

Watch the new Coronation Street adverts

As well as offering a competition to win a trip the Coronation Street set, Harveys the furniture store have some short and sweet videos on their site showing how they made the new Corrie ads.

You can watch them online right here.

Win a trip to the Coronation Street set

There's a competition on the Coronation Street sponsors' website at Harveys.com where you can win a trip to the Corrie set.

However, there is a catch as you have to spend £400 with them online first.

John Savident in A Gala for St George

While the Daily Mail may be a paper I don't usually read - even if it does have wacky photos of Corrie's Ken Barlow - The Guardian is one that I do. And it was there I spotted an ad for A Gala for Saint George, and the president for the night will be John Savident, better known and much missed as Corrie butcher Fred, I say, half a pound of sausage and some chops, please love.

Ken Barlow, fashion icon

I never usually read The Daily Mail but I spotted these fab pics today in someone else's copy of the paper. Yes, that is William Roache, aka Ken Barlow, for a photoshoot from 1970. I think he has a look of Mike Baldwin about him in that picture of the left.

Corrie women in Pinktastic Celebrity Art Auction on eBay

Four Coronation Street actresses have been busy with blu-tack and their creations are up for sale in a charity auction on eBay from Monday March 31st.

You can bid for artworks made by Kym Ryder (Michelle Connor), Samia Smith (Maria Sutherland), Katherine Kelly (Becky Granger) and Michelle Keegan (Tina McIntyre) and all money raised goes to the Breast Cancer Campaign.

Wednesday 19 March 2008

Buy Vera Duckworth's cardi for charity

Are you a woman of a certain age with a voice like a foghorn and a penchant for nagging your husband? Then you need Vera Duckworth's cardigan which is up for sale on eBay now. With proceeds going to charity, it's just what you need to wear when you nip out to the shops in your slippers.

What's the guest beer in the Rovers Return?

Grab your beard and sandals and head over to uk.food+drink.real-ale where there's a discussion on the guest beers being sold in the Rovers Return. It's been suggested that Roosters Ale is on sale. What? No Newton and Ridley?

Coronation Street Breakfast Group

Canadian Corrie fan Lesa Mansfield wrote to tell me about her Coronation Street Breakfast group, which was featured recently in Niagara ThisWeek. The group meet for gossip and a Corrie catch up each Sunday morning in The London Arms in St Catharine's, Ontario, Canada.

It sounds an absolutely fantastic idea and begs the question - why don't we have this sort of thing in the UK? Or maybe we do - if you know of anything Corrie groups, let me know and I'll blog 'em.

Sally Lindsay, a voice worth hearing

Ex-Corrie actress Sally Lindsay, who played Shelley Unwin, will soon become the new voice of Wallace's girlfriend in a TV Special of Wallace and Gromit.

Anyway, fans of Sally can listen in to the BBC Radio 4 programme A Good Read where Sally discusses her favourite author, Patrick Suskind. He wrote the book Perfume, an absolutely cracking book, as Wallace might say. You can listen to Sally's interview online right here.
For more Coronation Street podcasts and radio interviews, have a look here.

Tuesday 18 March 2008

The sound of Hilda Ogden

The hills are alive with the sound of Hilda Ogden on audio tape. Fans of Hilda might want to make the trip over to eBay where this little ditty is up for sale and you can hear words of wisdom direct from Hilda's very own lipsticked gob. Let's just hope she doesn't sing. eBay gum indeed.

Fancy some retro Hilda's ducks?

Gail Platt's fall down the stairs

Gail Platt falling down the stairs while doing an Irish Jig on YouTube. Is it a bit sick or a bit funny? You decide.

Monday 17 March 2008

Vote for Corrie in TV Now Awards

Voting is open in the TV Now Awards and if you'd like to vote for Coronation Street as Best Soap, get clicking and voting right here.

In last year's TV Now Awards, Sue Cleaver (Eileen Grimshaw) won Best Actress, and deservedly so too.

And don't forget to vote in the British Soap Awards.

Coronation Street Weekly Update, March 17 2008

Greetings and welcome to another weekly update. This week the update is looking forward to the long Easter weekend where it plans to sit on the sofa eating chocolate eggs and watching re-runs of Brigadoon for four days straight. And so, without any further ado, here we go with this week’s Coronation Street update.

If you’re sitting there reading the update this week and you’ve got a couple of spare grand in your pocket or are looking for something worthwhile to spend your life savings on, then my friend, why not invest in some property on the cobbles? You could, if you so wished, buy 40% of Underworld as Liam’s share is up for offers and the pizza place in the precinct is going cheap for sixty grand. And Leanne’s a girl who’s always up for offers.

Let’s go first to the factory where Eyeball Tony the Catalogue Man (and I apologise to viewers in Canada who haven’t yet seen him but when they do, will truly understand) offered to buy Liam’s share in ladies’ pants. Liam’s keeping a tight gusset on things at the minute, but he’s tempted, you can tell. Does Eyeball Tony really have designs on lingerie or does he want to control Carla Connor? My money’s on the latter.

When he gathered Carla’s family round and menaced “Marry Me” across the table to Carla, it wasn’t a question, it was a command. Carla wavered until she saw the size of the ring bling and then she caved in to Tony’s Northern rock shock. I nicked that Northern rock thing from one of the tabloids after I saw it this week and I liked it a lot. See, I always credit my sources.

We travel now a short distance from pants to parmesan as we go to the pizza place in the precinct where business is bad. Cashflow is tight and Leanne’s thinking of selling. She gets a man in who makes her an offer she can’t refuse while Dev embarrasses the wonderful Amber in her new job as waitress. He’s aghast that a daughter of his can demean herself to work for buttons in the service industry when there’s a perfectly good corner shop counter she can stand behind all day.

Elsewhere this week, the big news was that Gail ended up in t’hospital after she was pushed, yes pushed, ladies and gentlemen, down the stairs by David’s fair hand. It all started when Jason got the wrong end of the stick and heard Audrey and Gail talking about abortion. He assumed it was Sarah who’d had an abortion and went to see Gail, all guns blazing. She slapped him for his impertinence, and a good slap it was too, rating 8.5 out of 10 on the Corrie slap-o-meter but still coming short of the classic Sally Webster / Nastily Horrid slapper slap. It was such a good slap I whizzed the thing on the remote control and watched it again, twice. Anyway, Jason left Gail’s house with her handprint on his cheek while listening in at the back door was David, putting two and two together about abortions and babies and he realised that it was Tina who’d aborted their child. After a row with Gail at the top of the stairs, (her: “I did it because I love you!”, him: “I hate you!”) David reached out to confront Gail and she ended up falling down the stairs and into intensive care. She’s concussed, confused, and doesn’t remember anything after the row with Jason, which doesn’t bode well for young Mr Grimshaw. Did someone just ask for a picture of Jason without his shirt? No? What the heck, let’s have one anyway.

David broke up with his girlfriend Tina this week but only for a while. He really needs to keep that girlfriend, now he’s got the word Tina etched into his arm. Either that, or he could embellish it a bit if they ever did split up, maybe changing the tattoo into cortina or even gratination. But I don’t suppose tattooists get much call for either of those words in their line of work.

Over at Underworld, Kelly was caught knicking the knickers but Wiki was sacked. Ah, you see, they’re clever these Connor’s. They knew Kelly was the thief but they also knew that if they confronted her she’d deny all so they sacked Wiki, Kelly came to her rescue, owned up to the thefts and got a slap on the wrist.

Meanwhile, Kirk goes to visit Chesney who’s with the foster family, the wifey of which answers the door to Schmeichel and Kirk. “I’ve come to see Chesney,” Kirk reports at the door. “Oh, you must be…” she falters, wondering who on earth the gormless lump at her front door with a dog the size of a small horse could possibly be. “I’m his Kirk.” says Kirk, proudly. “I’m his Schmeichel,” the dog didn’t say.

Over at the Rovers, Michelle’s mardy when she finds out that Ryan wants to get in touch with his real dad, Nick. She gets all uppity about it and is not best pleased but you can’t blame the lad, not after he’s had Richard Ashcroft from the Verve trying to take over his life during the last few weeks.

Also in the Rovers, Vernon’s got plans. Not content with masterminding the revamp, he’s now planning the Smoker’s Secret, a backyard hideaway for a quiet puff. Make of that what you will, I’m saying nowt. And background music of the week in the Rovers was the newly released and downright awful version of Echo Beach, originally released by the fab Martha and the Muffins and now used as a god-awful theme tune for a dreadful ITV soap. I had to mention that bit ‘cos it set my teeth on edge. Agh! I’m going to have to YouTube the original version now, just to get that awful thing out of my head. You know when All Saints released that version of Under the Bridge? It’s almost, just almost, quite as bad as that.

And that’s just about that for this week.

Coronation Street writers this week were Mark Burt, Debbie Oates, Jayne Hollinson, Martin Allen and Joe Turner

Glenda
--
Blogging away merrily at http://flamingnora.blogspot.com/

Sunday 16 March 2008

Leanne Battersby's mum to turn up?

Crikey. One minute there are rumours that Gail Platt's dad will turn up on the cobbles and the next, it's Leanne's real mum who'll arrive. Janice, you'll remember, is Leanne's step-mum and we've never seen Leanne's real mum on screen.












Gossip over at Digital Spy suggests that Les Battersby will be killed off (so definitely no return for Bruce Jones) and Leanne's mum will turn up to see her daughter. I reckon Brenda Blethyn could play the part with ease, please.

GRITTY SAGAS BY CORRIE BLOG EDITOR GLENDA YOUNG, PUBLISHED BY HEADLINE. CLICK PIC BELOW!

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