Touring Manchester’s Coronation Street
Steve McKenna enjoys a trip down memory lane on the Coronation Street cobbles
“Come into the Rovers,” says our affable, actorly Mancunian guide, Robert, as he opens the door to arguably the world’s most famous fictional pub.
Having grown up seeing it on screen, it’s surreal wandering into the Rovers Return, the social hub of Coronation Street, the world’s longest-running TV soap opera.
I half-expect to see Bet Lynch, Steve McDonald or one of the pub’s other legendary landlords holding court behind the wooden bar; or Ken and Deirdre Barlow clinking glasses of red wine in the snug upholstered booths. Or indeed Ken having a punch-up with his long-time nemesis and love rival Mike Baldwin.
But it’s eerily quiet and empty in here today. Apart from us, that is: a 12-strong crowd of “Corrie” fans (spanning from about 18-80 years old) and Robert, who’s full of informative and humorous titbits about a quintessentially northern English show that has been on prime-time British TV for more than half a century as well as being exported to more than 40 countries (including Australia).
Popping into the Rovers — and getting your photograph taken behind the bar, as you pretend to pull a pint — is one of the highlights of Coronation Street The Tour, which grants a behind-the- scenes glimpse of the Old Granada Studios, where Corrie was made for 53 years. Early last year, production moved to a new, larger site at MediaCityUK (4km down the road in jazzed-up Salford Quays).
The hallowed Coronation Street sign at Old Granada Studios. Picture: Steve McKenna
Beginning in the green room, where the actors would nose through the scripts and brush up on their lines, the tour follows the path that the likes of Bill Roache (who plays Ken) and Johnny Briggs (who played Mike) would have taken on filming days. We’re led through a corridor of dressing rooms, past walls decorated with framed photographs of bygone characters (such as Curly Watts, Hilda Ogden, and Mavis and Derek Wilton) and into a costume department/make-up room, stuffed with outfits, including Tracy Barlow’s wedding dress, Roy Cropper’s blue-and-white striped apron and a brown jacket that Barbara Knox’s Rita Tanner would wear to thwart the chilly climate.
We’re shown a five-minute film crammed with memorable scenes of a program that’s centred on the ordinary working-class folk of Weatherfield (a fictional town based on Salford, Manchester’s neighbouring city). Created by Lancashire writer Tony Warren, Corrie was supposed to run for only 13 episodes. More than 8000 episodes and dozens of TV awards later, it’s an icon of British popular culture; famed for its emotive (and often ludicrous) storylines, deadpan wit and charismatic, crabby and daft performers.
Robert leads us through the old studios, where a clutch of interior sets are still on display. As well as Carla Connor’s plush flat, the prosaic Platt household, the Underworld factory (where Mike Baldwin screamed: “You’re sacked” countless times) and, of course, the Rovers, we see where Jack and Vera Duckworth, the show’s most lovable double act, lived (and died). In the middle of their old lounge is the chair in which both characters, played by Bill Tarmey and Liz Dawn, passed away. A TV screen beside the set replays the tear-inducing clips (some of my fellow tourists are mopping their eyes with tissues).
Inside the new Kabin set at the Old Granada Studios. Picture: Supplied
After scanning more nostalgic Corrie props, including Vera’s giant earrings and pink hairnet, Deidre’s spectacles, Roy Cropper’s train set and rubble from the tram crash that marked the show’s 50th anniversary, Robert thanks us for coming on the tour. Then, as the iconic cornet-fuelled Corrie theme starts to drift from a nearby set of speakers, he opens a door leading out into Weatherfield.
Smiles, and camera clicks, abound as our group treads the hallowed cobbles of Coronation Street and its surrounding arteries. Everyone naturally makes a beeline for the vivid exterior of the Rovers Return but you can also take pictures in front of other local built- to-scale landmarks, including Roy’s Rolls, Audrey Roberts’ Salon and Dev Alahan’s corner shop, plus the brick terraced houses that many Corrie families call home.
From March, new set additions have made it possible to peek inside The Kabin, the newsagents where Rita has worked, and gossiped, for donkey’s years; Websters’ Auto Centre, which has been dressed to replicate Kev and Tyrone’s workshop; and Prima Doner, where Tina McIntyre (Michelle Keegan) peddled kebabs before her violent exit.
While the guided part of the Corrie tour lasts about an hour, you can spend as long as you like around the cobbles and adjoining souvenir shop. But you best hurry.
The Kabin on Coronation Street, where Rita has worked and gossiped for decades. Picture: Steve McKenna
Plans are afoot to convert the Old Granada Studios complex into a new project called the St John’s Quarter, and the vintage Corrie set is poised to be dismantled.
Along with apartments, offices and eateries, St John’s will house The Factory Manchester, a $150 million multi-use arts space that will be the permanent headquarters of the biennial Manchester International Festival (MIF). The Factory name is inspired by the defunct Factory Records (the Mancunian label which drove the heady Madchester music scene of the 1980s and early 90s).
Incidentally, this year’s MIF takes place, in myriad Manchester locations, from July 2-19, and will include contributions from acts as varied as Icelandic crooner Bjork, Blur’s Damon Albarn and that great Mancunian celebrity physicist, Professor Brian Cox.
Steve McKenna was a guest of Coronation Street The Tour.
FACT FILE
Coronation Street The Tour will run for the rest of this year. Tickets are £17 ($33) for adults, £15.50 for children aged 5-15, £16 for senior citizens and students, and £60 for families (two adults, two children); coronationstreettour.co.uk.
To keep tabs on the latest St John’s Quarter developments, see stjohnsmanchester.com.
