Corrie creator to speak at Festival
Coronation Street creator Tony Warren will give a speech at this year’s MediaGuardian Edinburgh Television Festival.
Warren will reflect on the soap’s 50 years on air and will be joined by current producer Phil Collinson and actress Katherine Kelly.
It’s been announced that Warren will talk about the early days of the ITV Granada production and how its continued to changed and move with the times over the past five decades on air. The saga will mark it’s 50th year on-screen in December. It’s also been announced that the creator of Corrie will be joined by the soaps current producer Phil Collinson and actress Katherine Kelly, who plays Becky.
It is currently unknown exactly how Coronation Street will mark its 50th anniversary although a tabloid claimed over the weekend that actress Jean Alexander, who played the legendary Hilda Odgen, had been asked to return but the actress declined.
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It’s rumoured the anniversary will be marked with a big event – either a wedding or a funeral, or even both. However, the production has seemingly ruled out producing another live episode as it did for the 40th anniversary in 2000. In February EastEnders marked its 25th anniversary with an ambitious live episode which revealed the killer of Archie Mitchell (Larry Lamb) in the climax of a storyline kicked off on Christmas Day 2009.
ITV cop-drama The Bill has also produced two live episodes, one to mark its 20th anniversary and a further one to mark the anniversary of ITV.
As part of the MediaGuardian Edinburgh Television Festival there will be sessions with EastEnders as Charlie Clements (who played Bradley Branning, killed off in the live episode) and former executive producer Diederick Santer will discuss the soap along with John Yorke, the BBC’S Controller of Drama Production. Steven Moffat, show-runner of Doctor Who, will discuss the science fiction programmes continuing success.
The BBC has announced it’ll mark the anniversary of Coronation Street with a BBC Four drama that looks at the soap’s creation by Tony Warren.
Pictured Top: Tony Warren, Pictured Bottom: Diederick Santer