For those who best remember Coronation Street from the 1960s through to the 1980s, I heartily recommend a fantastic Coronation Street blog called Back on the Street.
the back room of the Rovers while the regulars party hard on t’other side of the bar. But no, this year on Corrie, there wasn’t any of that. What we did have was disappointing; Peter Barlow pushed into a Christmas tree, Tony Gordon strangling Jed Stone with Carla’s nighty and a bit of argy-bargy at the Platt’s - but in their house, argy-bargy is for life, not just for Christmas.
Yes, Peter Barlow has been drinking too much and slurring his words. He ruined Simon’s nativity play by turning up drunk to shupport hish shon and then had to apologishe to Ken and Deirdre while sipping on orange juice in the Rovers to prove that he’s now sober and can look after the fabtastic little Simon, who’s the best young actor to hit the cobbles in a long time.
basket. Hats, cats, dead bodies and nighties. Soap Christmasses should come with more spice. Fortunately, Maria provided a moment of madness when she daubed MU DERER on the Underworld walls, determined to out Tony Gordon as the killer of Liam. It was left to Becky to paint in the missing R, aah.
Best storyline by far has been Liz McDonald and her exercise class, the Brazilian Crunch, at which she wheezes. This shouldn’t be confused with the Credit Crunch, which squeezes. Lloyd’s roped in to be DJ at the Brazilian Crunch class and it’s not long before he and Liz lock lips and then scamper upstairs together in the Rovers for a bit of, well, I don’t know. You work it out. I can't wait to see the Steve McDonald gurn of the week when he finds out about his mum and his best mate.
The lovely Rita had a decent Christmas, spent with Eileen’s dad, Colin. Eileen wasn’t best pleased as she was expecting her dad there for his turkey and pud but he plumped for Rita’s offer of Christmas stuffing instead.
And finally, leading up to an explosive New Year on the street, Aunty Pam stores used chip fat in Jack’s back yard. She plans to convert it into bio-diesel with the help of young Darryl but it’ll all end in tears when Aunty Pam gets blown up! Now that’s the sort of action we want to see on Corrie at Christmas.
There's a special Coronation Street podcast going live on Friday 19 December over at The Soap Show.
Got some time on your hands now you're winding down to Christmas at your PC? Why not have a look at Coronation Street during 2008 in blog posts. (Canadian viewers you're approx. 9 months behind the UK as far as storyline goes).
With thanks to Coronation Street fan Martin S for sending in another great Steve McDonald gurn of the week. And I swear it's not been Photoshopped! Have a look at other fab Stevie McGurns of the week by clicking here.
The Manchester Evening News has 10, yes 10, copies to give away of the Coronation Street: Out Of Africa DVD. To enter the competition, click here. Deadline for entries is January 5, 2009.
There's sad news for the cast of Coronation Street as their mobile canteen (aka the butty bus) has been axed to save cash. An ITV insider told Sky: “The whole cast are up in arms — they’re absolutely furious. Having the van meant they could eat between takes and warm up with a cup of tea. They have always considered the butty waggon was part of their employment package.”
1. Finding out Rita Sullivan wasn't a real red-head
4. Vera Duckworth dying. Old cynic that I am, I didn't expect to shed a tear, but I did.
Sally Lindsay, who played Shelley Unwin and Tina Gambe, who played Coronation Street factory machinist Sonia Marshall will be starring in The Vagina Monologues at Carlisle’s Sands Centre on Friday 27 February. To book tickets and find out more, have a look here.
There's a long interview with Helen Flanagan (Rosie Webster) and Michelle Keegan (Tina McIntyre) with some festive pics over at OK Magazine. The two actors talk about Rosie and Tina's upcoming catfight on the cobbles.
When he left Coronation Street's Liam Connor behind him, actor Rob James-Connor started growing a beard. And now it appears to have gone.
Antony Cotton, who plays Coronation Street's Sean Tully, and Suranne Jones, who played Karen McDonald, join forces in a Coronation Street team on Who Wants to be A Millionnaire? Christmas Special.
Also, a quick mention that Carry on Cleo will be shown on New Years Eve on ITV1, starring the lovely Amanda Barrie, who played Corrie's Alma Baldwin.
New Corrie fella John Thomson teams up with ex-Corrie actress Debra Stephenson, who played Frankie Baldwin, on Alan Carr's Celebrity Ding Dong.
News in from the official Corrie site today is that two teenagers are joining the Coronation Street cast. Actors Lucien Laviscount and Sacha Parkinson will play Sophie Webster's new mates Ben and Sian.
Greetings and welcome to the last weekly update of 2008. I’ll not be here next week because there’s summat going on. Big fat fella, beard, tinsel, keeping the gin from Aunty Maude, all that sort of stuff. But I will be back between Chrimbo and the New Year with a festive round up of events on the cobbles so there’s something to look forward to after the disappointment you’ll receive when you don’t get the presents you hoped for. Anyway, without any further ado, here we go with this week’s Coronation Street update.
John Thomson joins the Corrie cast this week as General Custard
, the children’s entertainer, who Steve’s booked to entertain Amy and the kids at a party in the pub. General Custard, who’s really called Jesse (as in “James”, not as in “a right big”) is distraught as he’s just split up from his wife, who played the other half of his cowboy act, Hia-Lowa. As Steve comforts and cuddles Jesse, who’s still wearing his cowboy outfit, at the bar as he bawls about his missus, Eileen comes in to see what’s going on. “What’s this?” she asks, in the best line of the week. “A street theatre production of Brokeback Mountain?” Anyway, it’s all a ploy for Jesse and Eileen to get together as she takes on the challenge to become the new Hia-Lowa. Wearing a long black wig Eileen looked just like a long lost member of the Cherokee Connor clan. All this Hia-Lowa business was quite funny. “They’ll all be saying it in the pub downstairs, later,” says Jesse to Steve. Never mind the pub. When Carla Gordon came on screen later to greet Tony with a cheery “Hiya! to her new husband, I can’t have been the only Corrie fan to shout back at the telly. “Lowa!”. I can’t, can I?
Maria’s a woman possessed with finding the truth and witters on to anyone who’ll listen. I know, she did it last week too, but this week she did it in a nasty dressing gown. Carla and Tony return from honeymoon and Tony calls round to see Maria after he listens to her rants on his mobile phone accusing him of murdering Liam. He doesn’t deny it and offers her a million quid to keep schtum but as everyone now thinks Maria is nuts no-one believes her when she tells them the truth. She then reports the murder to the police while Tony sits in his car fingering a leather belt with strangulous (I know that’s not a real word, I just made it up) thoughts of murdering Maria. The thing is with Tony Gordon, he’s not that frightening, he just looks a bit daft.
Elsewhere this week, Tyrone suffers a minging birthday when Molly wants nothing to do with him after she found out he’d been lying to her about going to the gym when he was on the scam with Pam. Tyrone can’t keep his mind on the job at work and gets marriage counselling from marriage expert Kevin Webster who drags him to the pub for a pint.
Another new arrival this week was Eileen’s dad, Colin Postlethwaite. With Elvis’ Hound Dog as his mobile phone ringtone and an eye for the ladies, Rita in particular, Colin could be good fun. It’s clear he likes a drink or two, does Colin, and after Eileen’s fed up waiting for him to come home for dinner, she takes dinner to him in the pub, dumps it on the bar counter and covers it in salt. It’s been a good long few years since that happened in Corrie, it seems just like the sort of thing that Hilda did to Stan.
And that’s just about that for this week. I hope every single reader has a wonderful Christmas. I’ll be back before the New Year with a bumper edition update covering all of the Christmas events on Coronation Street. Cheers, everyone!
The cast of Coronation Street held their Christmas party on Friday night last week in Mancheser's casino 235. There are plenty of paparazzi pictures over here.
With a phone ringtone of Elvis' Hound Dog and an eye for the ladies, Eileen's dad turned up in Coronation Street last night. Actor Edward de Souza is playing Colin Postlethwaite and looks set to be a bit of fun for the soap OAPs. He's been acting since 1961 and has appeared in a whole host of TV and films, you can check out his full listing at the IMDB. You can watch a clip of him in the film The Golden Compass right here. 
Note to news websites who've cut and pasted this post as their own - could you please do the decent thing and give this blog a link?
It was December 11, 2007 when the Coronation Street blog first got up and running, which means that today it celebrates one year online.
The Coronation Street blog is proud to support Leukaemia Research.
Jean Alexander, who played Coronation Street's Hilda Ogden, did the honours at North Yorkshire's smallest village and switched on the Christmas lights - all ten of 'em - at Burn, near Selby.
Since leaving Coronation Street as Les Battersby, disgraced Corrie actor Bruce Jones is going to be sleeping rough. He's taking part in a BBC telly programme to go undercover to find out what life is like for Britain's homeless. Bruce will take part in the show, called Famous, Rich and Homeless alongside Hardeep Singh Kholi, Annabel Croft and The Marquis of Blandford. The five celebrities will spend 10 days on the street with guidance from top fella John Bird, founder of The Big Issue. The show will air next year.
It's a very special Christmas Steve McDonald gurn this week. For previous gurns from Coronation Street's Stevie Mc, have a look here.
There's wome wonderful gossip over at Sky TV who say that Carla Connor's sister might turn up in Coronation Street when Alison King, who plays Carla, returns from maternity leave next year.
It's official. Coronation Street is ITV's most-watched programme online. You can read all the ITV corporate blah at The Guardian website (and most other sites around th'internet today).
Pick Me Up Magazine has a special competition for Coronation Street fans. They're offering a prize of the Ghost Hunting with Corrie DVD so if you'd like to enter, click here.
Evil Tony Gordon is going to kill off Jed Stone by strangling him with Carla's nighty. It says here that after Tony strangles Jed, he later gives the nighty back to Carla and apologises that it's a bit creased! By 'eck, she's married a rum one there.
"What's the definition of a gentleman?" asked Sean Tully at last week's Coronation Street wedding of Carla Connor and Tony Gordon. "It's someone who can play the bagpipes, but doesn't."
Hello folks and welcome to another weekly update. This week the update’s been making a list and next week it’ll check it twice. It’s time to open door number two on the weekly update advent calendar and let’s see who we’ve got. Ooh, lovely and yum, it’s Tom Selleck. And so, without any further ado, here we go with this week’s Coronation Street update.
This week the Windasses moved into Coronation Street. They’re the Battersby’s all over again, so much so that I’m calling them the Windasserby’s. They’re thick, ignorant, violent and noisy and move in next door to the Platts. What’ll it be like living next door to a family of violent thugs with criminal records? The Windasses will soon find out.
The big event of the week was Carla Connor’s wedding, taking up two episodes of its own, both written wonderfully by Damon Rochefort with some cracking dialogue. Sally sipping pink wine: “Ooh, Rosé!” Rosie, without missing a beat: “What mum?” Anyway, there were “I do’s” with Tony in a kilt and a man on the bagpipes. I was going to tell you my bagpipe joke but Sean Tully got in first when he told it to the assembled throng at the wedding reception. Never mind I’ll tell it anyway. What’s the definition of a gentleman? Someone who can play the bagpipes, but doesn’t.
As the wine flows and Sally gets drunk, Kevin turns Neanderthal after a few beers and everyone gives Tony Gordon the evil eye. As if he needs it, too. The Websters’ are in such a state that Carla lets rip at Sally and tells her to behave herself. Sally, and never forget she’s a Seddon and from the wrong side of the tracks, gets revenge at the wedding and shows Maria the video of Carla snogging Liam. Maria spends the rest of the week questioning anything that moves whether they knew anything about Liam and Carla having an affair. She’s beside herself with grief and it makes for really dull viewing. Next!
Steve steps up Operation Bad Boyfriend so that Michelle will hate him and he can run off with Becky. He slopes around the flat in baggy y-fronts, scratching himself, unwashed, unshaved but Michelle hasn’t noticed anything’s wrong. Meanwhile Becky starts to get jealous and wants Steve all to herself as Liz heads off to her Brazilian Crunch class. Ouch.
Molly suspects Tyrone’s up to no good with Amber’s mate Minnie who does indeed drive a Mini. She hasn’t yet been spotted wearing a mini but I’m sure it can’t be long; mini’s never are. Tyrone is indeed deceiving Molly but in a good way, if such a thing exists. He’s scamming with Aunty Pam to sell cheap perfume but Molly thinks he’s chatting up girls and lying about going to the gym and of course she’s spot on. She might be short but she’s good, is Mol.
At Weatherfield General, Janice starts her community service with Emily Bishop supervising her every move. She thinks she’s in for a soft ride when she finds out Emily’s the one looking after her but Emily soon shows her backbone of steel. Years of living with Norris has toughened her up and she sets Janice to work mopping the floor of the canteen and sorting out the bric-a-brac and knick-a-knacks. And it’s not long before Janice turns the head of a fella in the George Formby ward.
