George Michael - God rest his soul - lived a colourful life. Apparently though, he was never happier than when drinking tea and watching Corrie in his PJs. A man after my own heart!
I remember reading this interview with him in the Guardian when he said that his guiltiest pleasure was Sunday morning when he saved up “loads of episodes of Corrie to watch”. I was already a fan but he went up further in my estimation when I discovered he was into Coronation Street.
George was renowned for his sense of humour and he loved Corrie because it was “a laugh”. He once said that “even when life is tragic on Coronation Street, it's still funny”.
I wonder if George ever knew that his face was plastered across the wall of the factory in the late 1980s. I bet he would have got a real kick out of it if he did.
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One of my favourite pastimes when watching Classic Corrie on ITV3 is following the winds of change in popular culture in 1980s Weatherfield. Well, that and keeping track of Sally's changing hairstyles.
Although I was disappointed to learn last week that sometime around November/December 1988, the Smiths poster (see previous blog) had been removed, I was cheered by the fact it had been replaced by an image of George Michael from the famous ‘Faith’ video released a year previously. I bet Morrissey was livid!
George Michael was such a big Corrie fan that he once went on a private tour of the set and enjoyed meeting the actors and crew as much as - or possibly more than - they enjoyed meeting him. There are some wonderful accounts of this online and apparently he was there on the day Kate Ford was rehearsing the scene in which Tracy murdered Charlie Stubbs. See this article in the Manchester Evening News.
I guess that means George visited the set in late 2006 or early 2007. Sally Dynevor shared this brilliant photo on Twitter soon after his tragic death. Obviously, I'm dating the set visit from my encyclopedic knowledge of Sally Webster's hairstyles!
I’m not sure if George would still regard Corrie to be a laugh or if, like the rest of us, he might be questioning whether his beloved soap had featured a bit too much of the tragedy recently at the expense of the comedy.
Still, I'm pretty sure he’d have had faith, faith, faith - and that’s exactly what we've all gotta have.
By Martin Leay, on Twitter @mpleay
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Loved Shayne Ward's version of Different Corner.
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