The Road to Coronation Street, BBC Four | reviews, news & interviews
The Road to Coronation Street, BBC Four
The Road to Coronation Street, BBC Four
Entertaining prequel drama about the northern soap has some standout turns
Friday, 17 September 2010
Formidable women: Tony Warren (David Dawson) and female company from 'The Road to Coronation Street'
A drama about Britain’s (and by the time Coronation Street reaches its 50th birthday in December, the world’s) longest-running soap starts with a huge advantage - its producers could just quote lumps of the brilliant original scripts, written by Corrie’s creator, Tony Warren, and be done with it. But Daran Little, himself a former writer on the show, resisted that urge (well, mostly) when penning The Road to Coronation Street, an affectionate and witty prequel that told us how the soap came about, or rather, how it almost didn’t.
A drama about Britain’s (and by the time Coronation Street reaches its 50th birthday in December, the world’s) longest-running soap starts with a huge advantage - its producers could just quote lumps of the brilliant original scripts, written by Corrie’s creator, Tony Warren, and be done with it. But Daran Little, himself a former writer on the show, resisted that urge (well, mostly) when penning The Road to Coronation Street, an affectionate and witty prequel that told us how the soap came about, or rather, how it almost didn’t.
Warren wrote terrific parts for women and fittingly the greatest pleasure here was knockout performances by Jessie Wallace and Lynda Baron
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