The Betty Driver show is narrated by Sir Ian McKellen and is a documentary which looks at her life before and during Coronation Street – as a singer, a variety star, a leading lady and a television actress.
Betty was a child star in the 1930s and appeared in feature films and radio shows of the day, entertaining the troops during the Second World War, before getting her own TV series in the 1950s.
In this documentary she talks about her nine decades in show business. She recalls her difficult life as a child star, how her marriage ended in disaster and the moment she suffered a career-threatening injury during the filming of a TV show, which led to her decision to retire from entertainment and run a pub instead.
We also hear how Betty first auditioned for the role of Hilda Ogden before appearing in Coronation Street as Betty Turpin in 1969 – a role which has helped turn ‘hotpot’ into a world-famous dish.
Forty one years and 2,830 episodes later, the programme follows Betty as she films her latest scenes at the Granada TV studios.
There are also contributions from fellow Coronation Street stars including William Roache, Julie Goodyear, Helen Worth, Sue Nicholls and Antony Cotton, and Corrie star turned impresario Bill Kenwright, who played Betty’s son Gordon in Corrie.
9 comments:
This sounds a must-watch. So glad it's being shown, I was worried it would remain unseen. Also looking forward to DID this Sunday.
Brilliant. Betty is the best.
Looking forward to this muchly. But why do they always drag out the awful Goodyear woman to pontificate every time they have a nostalgiafest?
I'm very disappointed. Because I am from Scotland I dont get ITV1. We're stuck with STV insted so I'll miss this documentary about Betty Driver. Hopefully someone will post it online or it will be available to us in Scotland at a later date.
Cos Julie is a Corrie legend. I would apply your statement though to Antony Cotton.
I really enjoyed this, I had no idea how much Betty had done before Corrie, what a fabulous career. She came over as such a nice lady too!
Very wishy-washy, but still rather enjoyable... will Betty be in Corrie at 100?
I enjoyed this and Betty seems a lovely person who enjoys fame without desperately wanting to be phiotographed in the latest chav mag. Why wishy washy? Silly statement for a programme that was good.
Oh come on, it was a typical ITV 'documentary' - it didn't really explore anything in detail, no probing questions asked of Betty. How did Betty come to marry her husband? Why has she never remarried, or had kids? Why did her sister choose to sacrifice her own life to be with Betty? Why has she almost always been a supporting character on the Street? These are all questions I'd have liked to know the answer to. Perhaps Betty's book will tell me. If the BBC had made the documentary (never likely in this case), we'd have known, although the extra ten minutes does help...
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