ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT Fascinating Ordinary Lives

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30712, 30 March 1965, Page 11

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT Fascinating Ordinary Lives

The folk who live in “Coronation Street” are on my list of TV top people. I have been dropping in on them for many weeks, but I have been reluctant to admit my fondness for the Lancashire street and its characters. There is a reason. In top TV viewing circles you don't boast about watching “Coronation Street.”

“The Times” used to proclaim that it was read by top people. Strange as it may seem. I have found there are top people among TV viewers of my acquaintance. They will watch documentaries; * programmes like “Jane Eyre” and “Bleak House” are acceptable because the books are classics. Occasionally these top viewers will watch a Western (purely as an intellectual exercise) but they dismiss “Coronation Street" and “Dr. Kildare” from their screens.

To the top viewers “Coronation Street” is a trifle nonll. They think the street and the seven terraced houses in it are drab and depressing. THE SPEECH

The North Country speech is hard to understand, and nothing much seems to happen. But the accents are easy to accept once you get used to them. They are no better and no worse than the speech of some Kiwis who talk cheerfully about New Zillun. And if nothing much seems to happen in “Coronation Street” that is all in its favour. Why should there be violent action in every episode of a serial? I have heard top viewers who, having sneaked a look at “Coronation Street,” condemn it as just a serial like “those awful radio soap operas." It is a serial, and probably the most successful of the few produced specially for TV. But 1 don’t think it can be compared to a radio soap opera. If there is any soap in “Coronation Street” it is the hard yellow variety our grandmothers used in the washhouse copper, not the lady-like washing powder out of a packet which we use in the laundry. VERY REAL An Australian critic has said that either you become devoted to “Coronation Street” or you want to kick the screen in. Like millions of viewers in Britain I have become devoted to it. Perhaps the street is drab and the lives of its residents do become a little depressing. But the street has become very real to me. I know the houses, Florrie Lindley’s corner shop, the Glad Tidings Mission Hall, and the Rovers’ Return where Ena Sharpies and her cronies sit with their glasses of milk stout and pull the whole neighbourhood to pieces.

To me “Coronation Street” is like a pair of well-worn, comfortable shoes. It is a relief to kick off my high heels, slip into the old shoes, and sit back to watch the doings of ordinary people. The stories about these people are told in an almost rambling way; there are times when I find it difficult to pick up the threads again. But I like to come back to the street each week because I want to find out what is happening there. ORDINARINESS "Coronation Street” has held its audience, including myself, from one episode to another for so long because it is not an escapist serial. In fact it goes to the other extreme and is absorbing be-

cause it is so very ordinary. The street is a street of hair nets and curlers, dusters, and tomato sauce. What takes place there is relatively mundane. There is little drama or action, but the characters have become real people, and so have the situations in which they are involved. I enjoy the sourness and defiance of Ena Sharpies, and I appreciate her sharp tongue. I don’t mind the occasional poor quality of the film, or the disjointed way in which the serial seems to proceed. The stories may seem unrelated, and there are times when it is hard to identify the stray characters who move from home to the pub and back again. But usually I I know them when they begin

to speak. And as long as life goes on in "Coronation Street” I am happy to sit back and watch it There is no need to rack my brains trying to understand the characters—l either like them or dislike them. ILLUSION OF REALITY Perhaps I am just being given the illusion of reality. Perhaps life in a Lancashire town was never like life in “Coronation Street.” But it does seem real to me. Top viewers may sneer at it; I am happy to be with the bottom and middle viewers who don’t care whether it is U or nonU in the TV world. “Coronation Street” is still at the top of Britain's TV top twenty—with 9.45 million viewers. —C.C.