Christine Warren at the Coronation Street Fun Pages has published an exclusive interview with Helen Nugent who is the show archivist. Christine has a great interview where Helen tells her all about her job. There's a lot to it!
Helen has been in the job for 16 years. She reads all the scripts and summarises them, then updates each character's biography. All this is used by the Press Office and the Directors as well. She notes particular clips of film for future montage use or use by the media. She also gets to oversee official merchandise which is still being produced. She also is in charge of historical continuity and it's interesting to see her views on what happens when things get changed:
Yes, it does get tricky from time to time, but the thing is, it is a work of fiction, and sometimes the Producer will tweak history a little in order to have a good storyline. For instance, we may change someone's birthday so they can have it on a day we go to air. We know the diehard fans get upset if we change events of the past, and quite rightly so, and we do try very hard to stick to Coronation Street's rich history, but sometimes if we have a story we want to tell, it can't be helped. I may not always agree with it, but ultimately it is their decision.
She has a lot of interesting things to say and the interview is very much worth a read. There are some great photos as well.
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7 comments:
It's a very good interview indeed! But I was a little surprised to read Helen's comment that Ken went vegetarian to please Nessa. He didn't. Ken announced to Deirdre immediately after his return from Canada that he had gone vegetarian. Much later, Nessa pretended to go vegetarian to please Ken! That quibble aside, a great read!
Yes jnblas, I rembember it that way, too, Ken came back from Canada as a vegetarian
the one point that bothers me the most is the difference between the previews and the actual episode - if they do film approx. 3 mos in advance than that is plenty of time to get in sync. How many times have we read about something happening in the preview but we never see on screen and we are left scratching our heads as to why we missed it. Just the other night, in the preview it was supposed to be Bethany who accidentally walked in on Michael in the shower, in the episode it was Sarah. No biggie, but one would hope that they get in right.
Is Helen David Nugent's wife? If so, isn't that nice that Corrie has brought them together. ☺️
I think that the preview mistakes are often typos. I've certainly done the same thing myself when blogging or writing an update, using the wrong character name. I don't always catch it even if i read it over first!
I agree that sometimes it is just a mistake between names, but remember just this last month it was previewed that councilor Sally would meet Pat & Vinnie in Roy's café to discuss the rezoning issue and she would be horrified & embarrassed by the way that Pat treated Alex - well that scene never made it to the screens. At first I thought it was just myself that had missed it, but then in the comments post episode a few other people mentioned it also, so I know I wasn't alone in missing it. That they could have rectified prior to releasing.
There was also the one about Dev finding Eccles wandering in the street & then discovering Tracy laying in the ginnel in the preview - in the episode it was Beth who found the dog - now that was a change from preview to actual.
I think they write the рreviews before final filming - they must do otherwise how can they exрlain last minute character changes? Bethany seeing Michael in the 'nuddy' would be too рervy, so it had to be sarah, that makes sense
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