Running for over sixty-three years, Coronation Street is the longest-running soap opera show in British television history. The show takes place in the fictional Manchester suburb of Weatherfield, which was based on the real-life community of Salford. Featuring a number of down-to-Earth people using local accents instead of the “Queen’s English” (or Received Pronunciation), the show was a hit with viewers shortly after it debuted and remains a ratings juggernaut today. Granada Television produced the show for the first forty-six years of its run before they were succeeded by ITV, the network on which the soap opera airs. Such a long-running program is full of fascinating facts that we look forward to sharing with you.

BIG BIG NUMBERS

Owing to its long-running status, Coronation Street has aired over 10,000 episodes since it premiered.

IF I FITS, I SITS

Coronation Street has re-filmed its opening titles several times over its history. Starting in the mid-1970s, no one noticed a cat curled on top of the roof. No one except producer Bill Podmore, who insisted that any future titles also include a cat on the roof.

GUEST STARRING

It’s not unusual for shows such as Coronation Street to play hosts to a number of famous guest stars, though rarely do the celebrities get to appear as themselves. Some notable exceptions have been This Morning hosts Philip Schofield and Holly Willoughby, the band Status Quo, and King Charles III (HRH having appeared on the show’s 40th anniversary when he was still Prince of Wales.

UPSTAGED

One might be willing to believe that King Charles’s walk-on role was his most-watched television appearance. By contrast, his wedding to Queen Consort Camilla had about 13 million viewers in the United Kingdom, while an episode of Coronation Street airing later in the day got 17 million viewers to see character Ken Barlow remarry his ex-wife Deidre Rachid.

555-5555?

A 2010 episode’s story required male escort Archie’s ad to appear in “The Lady” magazine. ITV actually got a few angry calls because the contact information in the ad was fake.

PULLING PINTS

The Rovers Return Inn is quite possibly the most popular location on the show and where a bulk of the action happens. Naturally, there are a lot of drinks slung, and crisps served on a regular basis. Annually, the pub serves roughly 1,440 pints, 100 gin and tonics, 84 hotpots, and 2,500 bags of crisps. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) for the actors, the pints are often a watered-down shandy, and the gin and tonics are little more than fizzy water and lime.

MONKEYS ON TYPEWRITERS

The show has eighteen writers in total. Every three weeks, they meet up for two days to hash out plot details and write stories. They produce fifteen scripts total (five episodes per week for three weeks), and each writer gets to contribute to an episode.

THEY LIVE ON IN OUR HEARTS (AND ON OUR SCREENS)

Nearly a dozen actors have died during the show’s run. Their characters were often written out either at the time of the actor’s death or later in the show’s run. Perhaps the most prominent loss was Rovers Return Inn landlady Betty Williams, played until her death at 91 by Betty Driver. Shortly after Driver’s/Williams’s passing, a picture of her was placed in the pub and remains there today.

ANOTHER REAL-LIFE TRIBUTE

Roy Cropper, the owner of Roy’s Rolls, is hardly ever seen without his shopping bag. The bag itself came from Roy’s actor, David Neilson, who began carrying it around in-character as the bag had belonged to his late mother.

THE SHOW’S GETTING A WIDER AUDIENCE

Coronation Street went from 4:3 aspect ratio to widescreen in 2002, which caused a bit of a technical problem. The increased size of the screen meant the show had to CGI in some more houses for the neighborhood before the opening titles were reshot. The program went high definition in 2010.