British Lawmakers Celebrate Corrie at 60

The House of Commons, the centre of British democracy ended business on Wednesday with a short debate on the contribution Coronation Street has made to British life over the last sixty years.

The Speaker of the House Sir Lindsay Hoyle started the adjournment debate sharing how Northern members of parliament had asked him to hold a debate in light of such a big and important anniversary, coming up on the ninth of December. 

Tracy Brabin, former Corrie cast member and now Labour MP for Batley and Spen delivered a beautiful speech celebrating all that is good about the world's longest running soap. Tracy told MPs of characters and storylines which the nation had tuned in to watch in their millions over the years, and how some of them crossed over from entertainment into serious raising of awareness for issues such as suicide, sexuality and cancer. 

Other MPs from across the political spectrum stood to contribute to the debate, some praising the Corrie crews over the years and explaining how Media City, where Corrie is filmed, is helping regenerate parts of the North West of England. There weren't many present for the debate, it's a bit of a niche topic for most, but those that contributed did so beautifully in celebration of, in their words "the nation's favourite Street".

I'm still watching the debate as I write this and Tracy is still talking with great passion - now about the great Anne Kirkbride and Tony Warren. It's quite emotional actually.

From one iconic institution to another, seeing this debate take place ahead of Corrie's birthday week is the cherry on the cake among a packed programme of events and documentaries as the Street hits the big 60 next Wednesday.

And it's nice to see lawmakers talk about something positive rather than Brexit and Covid-19.

In that context, Tracy closed her speech with a quote from the unforgettable Blanche Hunt:

"In my day, summat bad 'appened, you stayed home, got drunk and bit on a shoe".

Happy Birthday Corrie.

Twitter: @StevieDawson

WASH THOSE HANDS

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Manchester Mayor Visits Weatherfield on Green Mission

Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester has visited Weatherfield. Technically part of Andy’s mayoral constituency, Weatherfield has its own mayor but we won’t go into all that. 

Andy took to the cobbles as part of his work on tackling environmental issues facing in the area. Back in March the ‘Manchester Green Summit’ was held in the region and who better to help put a subsequent plan into action than a soap that has won numerous awards for its green efforts.

Twitter: @MayorOfGM

The awards for Corrie started flooding in when the programme moved to its new home at MediaCity. The first major gong was won at the Observer Ethical Awards and Producer Kieron Roberts had this to say at the time:

“This is a very special and important award, one which we are all very proud to receive. Coronation Street has strived to improve the sustainability of every element of the production from how we power our site, to how we encourage electronic working for scripts and paperwork, to how we minimise waste and recycle wherever possible, to how we produce food, source costumes, and create sets.”

Now at the end of every episode, after the credits you will see the albert+ sustainable production logo in recognition of their continuing efforts to make an environmentally-friendly show.

Twitter: @ITVCorrie 

The UK government this week declared a “Climate Emergency” – the first country to do so, recognising that climate change and poor air quality are a real and present danger. The Mayor and cast and crew of Coronation Street are obviously taking note.

Andy Burnham, and the Labour Party which he represents have many connections to Coronation Street. Often when the Labour conference takes place in Manchester, politicians dance the night away at parties in the Rovers Return.

Former Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls & union boss Frances O'Grady

Actor Julie Hesmondhalgh who played the iconic Hayley Cropper is a prominent Labour Party campaigner.

Andy and Julie share a giggle at conference

Batley and Spen MP Tracy Brabin played Tricia Armstrong in Corrie.

Tracy and legend Johnny Briggs

Unfortunately this Blogger is sad to report that Leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn prefers….Eastenders.

No comment.

Incidentally across the UK local council elections are taking place today.

Good luck to all Weatherfield candidates!

Twitter: @StevieDawson 

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Tracy Brabin returns to Coronation Street

Photo from Twitter: @TracyBrabin

Tracy Brabin is the actress who played Tricia Armstrong in Coronation Street in the late 90s.  Tricia was mum to Jamie Armstrong, played by one of my favourite actors Jo Gilgun. Jo went on to star as Woody in This is England.

Anyway, Tracy Brabin is now a Labour MP and yesterday she visited the Coronation Street set.

Tracy posted the photo at the top of this blog post to her Twitter feed today saying: Back at my old home on the cobbles, canvassing at No. 9 at Coronation Street. Let’s hope Fiz is voting Labour! #labourdoorstep – at Coronation Street Studios

There's a fantastic interview with Tracy in which she talks all things acting and being an MP. It's at The Stage website.

Read more Corrie news, interviews, gossip and spoilers  

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Ex-Coronation Street actress new shadow childcare minister

Tracy Brabin, who played Tricia Armstrong in Coronation Street from 1994-1997, has been named as the new shadow childcare minister.

Tracy has also appeared in Eastenders and Casualty. She has also written scripts for TV series such as Shameless, Heartbeat and Family Affairs.

Tracy Brabin, who has been a campaigner and trade unionist for the last two decades, is one of 20 appointments to the shadow front bench announced by Labour, with its leader Jeremy Corbyn, saying: “I'm delighted to be filling Labour's shadow front bench with a wealth of talent. Our new shadow ministers will bolster the excellent work of Labour's shadow cabinet and departmental teams.”

See also: P is for Politics

Read more Corrie news, interviews and spoilers here

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Happy Returns

I'm not generally a fan of bringing back characters who are long gone from Coronation Street.  Look at the current cast: Dennis Tanner is no fun at all, and Todd has returned as some kind of predatory gay sex spider, crawling all over the street and hissing bile.  There's also the danger that you end up like EastEnders, where a roster of characters are constantly leaving forever before returning again two years later.  Sharon Watts seems to be attached to Albert Square by an invisible bungee cord.

I'd much rather the scriptwriters came up with new, interesting characters than rely on the audience's affections for old faces.

However, I would make an exception for Tricia Armstrong.  Played by Tracy Brabin, Tricia was in Corrie for only a few years in the mid-nineties, but I thought she was an interesting character and brilliantly played.  She was a scraggy, loud-mouthed piece of work, but she had a surprising heart at times and loved the bones off her two sons - Jamie and Brad.

Brad, incidentally, was a Duckworth, the result of a one-night stand with Terry.  Wouldn't it be nice to bring a Duckworth back to the Street, now that Tommy is, erm, "indisposed"?  He's about sixteen or seventeen now, so the producers could get a teen hunk who can take his shirt off on Digital Spy.  You could even bring back Terry for a bit, or at least that moon-sized humanoid who was pretending to be Terry last time he appeared.

Tricia was a good laugh, and Tracy played her with heart and humour.  When she turned up as a shelf-stacker in the Sainsbury's ads a few years ago, I was deeply dismayed.  (It also undermined the "oh she's just like you!" theme of the ads when we were all going "It's Tricia!").  She could make a return to Underworld, battling with Sally Webster, palling up with Beth for nights in the Rovers, rekindling her surprising but pleasing friendship with Deirdre.  Since she has that surname, perhaps she's related to Owen?  And since she wasn't an iconic character, a Bet Lynch or an Alec Gilroy, she won't be saddled with the baggage of expectation.

The fact that I'm able to recall her at all, when other characters of the period are happily forgotten (the Mallets?  Chris Collins?) is surely an indication that she made an impression.  Tina's old flat is going begging now...

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Writing for Soaps session at London Screenwriters Festival

Remember Tracy Brabin, who played Coronation Street's Trish Armstrong - mother of Jamie?  Tracy's gone on from acting to writing for soaps and some excellent TV drama.  Check out her profile here.

Tracy will be one of the soaps writers speaking in the Writing for Soaps session at this year's London Screenwriters Festival.  The festival takes place in that London from October 26-28th October 2012 at the London School of Film, Media Performance, Regent's College.

The Writing for Soaps session is scheduled to take place on Saturday 27th October at 3.30pm.  The schedule is here.

Also lined up to Chair the session is Yvonne Grace. Yvonne has 20 years experience in producing and script editing long running series and soaps for ITV and the BBC. She latterly Exec Produced Crossroads and before that, produced Holby City. She has also script edited Eastenders and run storylining workshops for Corrie.  Yvonne runs a script editing and writer mentoring website called Script Advice  http://www.scriptadvice.co.uk/   

Yvonne and Tracy are joined by Mr Holby City Tony McHale. 

STOP PRESS: Corrie writer Damon Rochefort now confirmed to join this soaps session. More info here.

If anyone goes along to this and would like to write us a blog post after the event about the Writing for Soaps session, please do get in touch.

Check out the festival website.