'Coronation Street’ rebuilt

Press, 17 November 1981, Page 19

'Coronation Street’ rebuilt

PA London Work has started on rebuilding the outdoor set of "Coronation Street.” In future the Rover’s Return, the screen’s best-known pub, may be open for real business. Doris Speed, who has played the landlady, Annie Walker, throughout the 21year run of the Granada serial, cut the first sod of the \ 1.4 hectare site in Manches- \ ter. Wearing blue overalls and a red safety helmet, she posed for photographs on the site which is just a few hundred metres from the original set, built in the early 19605:. The new location will include several extra features, including Coronation Street’s neighbour, Rotherman Street, part of which viewers will see for the first time. The original set still in use, allows filming only from the side towards the real viaduct, which will have to be copied on the new site. The Granada managing director, David Plowright, said: “We hope to allow public access to the set when

it is not being used for programme-making purposes. “It may include a Rover’s Return where tourists can take a little refreshment before taking a walk down the street whose gossip is known around the world.” There have been 2151 episodes of “Coronation Street” since it first went out on December 9, 1960. It has been seen in. 17 countries, from Thailand to the United States. After officially starting work on the site, Miss Speed told reporters it presented “a challenge.” “The programme may well be with us in another 21 years time,” she said. “It depends on whether writers can keep coming up with good story lines. “I think they have been immensely successful in the past.” The new “street” is part of a multi-million pound development in the centre of Manchester, which includes a new science museum and restoration of Britain’s first passenger and freight station, opened in 1830...