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Watching Classic Corrie I’ve been struck by the generous number of extras and not just in the Rovers and the shop, but more of them in the actual street too. Nowadays we seem to get customers or extras in The Rovers, the Bistro, and in Audrey’s salon, sometimes Roy’s Rolls has a few, but the Kabin and kebab shop always seem devoid of customers.
Is it the shops themselves that are driving them away? To me the shops in Classic Corrie seem more realistic; Alf Roberts seems to have had a proper fully stocked shop whereas poor old Dev seems to have an emporium where minimalism has triumphed. Rita and Mavis ran a realistically small shop crammed with good, whereas the Kabin is larger nowadays but seems to sell less.
Surely they can afford to pay for some more extras and, as these are local businesses, it wouldn’t matter if we were seeing the same customers come and go?In the street, where are the postie, the milkman, the parcel delivery service, the bin men?
I love looking at the extras practising their much ender-estimated skills; I think it started in the 1960s when I was told the chap ( Burt somebody?) who produced our local town’s professional Christmas pantomime, and played the dame, was an extra to be seen drinking in the Rovers Return. After that, spotting him in The Rovers became a family game.
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11 comments:
Speaking of the bin-man, who was it who dated one for a short while? I forget.
Carla, then he ran off with Janice Batersby.
Trevor the bin man! I remember him.
Carla dated him even though Janice was pining for him...and got him eventually.
Those sets for the shops are so small (despite the new set), it's a wonder they can fit in the regular actors to do their scenes, let alone extras.
I was watching Classic Corrie today and thinking how over-populated it looked. There were half a dozen extras walking down the street outside the factory, just passing by, and the Rovers was full with a roar of background noise on a weekday lunch. There seemed to be people all over the place all the time. Meanwhile, in the present day, there's a cast of some fifty-odd characters - why pay a supporting artist to nod silently as they accept their change when you've got a bunch of actors who are already on staff waiting in the Green Room?
I do agree that, following the refit, Dev's looks a bit understocked, but the nature of the shop has changed. Classic Corrie shows the characters turning up to do their shop in Alf's on a daily basis - Gail will buy the stuff for that night's tea. People don't shop like that any more - there's a weekly big shop in Freshco's, so Dev's becomes the emergency shop, the odd treat. It's a more 21st century store than Alf's Mini Mart.
Great point Scott about the current staff and the green room waiting game!
The background roar on Classic Corrie is driving me bonkers. Around thirty lorries must have been slowly passing by the Rovers on one episode, as Bet and Alec fought to make themselves heard. Weird!
Curly was a bin man too. Percy Sugden was for ever complaining about their shoddy work.,
Eddie Yeats was a bin man as well. Stan and Hilda's lodger. He introduced Curly...they referred to him as "The Professor"
Other things much better in Classic Corrie: real hospitals and police stations, instead of an obvious set.
And they're rarely seen too, instead of endless boring hospital scenes and dreary, cardboard cutout TV police visiting every five minutes. Today's writers and producers seem to think if the emergency services aren't turning up, we'll switch off.
Whilst I'm at it, the cafe in Classic Corrie looks and feels like a real greasy spoon, not the naff English Heritage set-up we have now. Roy's Rolls was naff when it first appeared, and has looked steadily worse as the years have gone by. It's like something out of The League of Gentlemen.
Talking about sets, I couldn't help notice how crammed Carla and Peter looked in Roy's flat. I think Roy would be meticulous, tidy and have no room for clutter. It's closing in on him.
@Cobblestone & C in Canada:
I loved Janice Battersby! I wish ITV would bring her back!
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