ITV 60th to air a live Corrie

[Dazzle]

Hope it is not going to turn out to be a damp squid but looking forward to it too

I've seen speculation elsewhere that Sarah might die. She's a major character and it'd give massive shock value. She also hasn't really worked as a character since her return so is the most expendable if they want to kill off a Platt.

[tammyy2j]

I don't want Callum killed off as it seems so obvious it is happening

Sarah or Bethany or David dying would be a shock

I think Jack hinted he hadn't signed a new contract but Corrie would be stupid to kill off David Platt

Is Eileen in live episode, could she kill Callum over Jason, perhaps her and Gail team up for once no street fighting

[Dazzle]

Is Eileen in live episode, could she kill Callum over Jason, perhaps her and Gail team up for once no street fighting

This is a picture of tonight's cast, although some of the people are hard to identify. Eileen's there but Gail isn't.

[tammyy2j]

Few viewers can have failed to notice the advert for tonight’s live episode of Coronation Street. UTV and ITV have been airing it repeatedly practically every evening since the beginning of September.

Bat-faced squirt David Platt, his dumb sister Sarah-Louise and Kylie are shown being chased along the cobbles by drug dealer and all-round bad boy Callum when, thanks to a clever bit of CGI trickery, they suddenly find themselves teetering on a cliff.

It’s an apt image. Coronation Street has itself been close to falling off a cliff for ages now, pushed to the very edge by a combination of lousy characters, dodgy acting by some younger cast members and silly, tedious storylines that drag on interminably.

Look, for instance, how long it took Tracy Barlow to confess that she and not guilt-ridden Carla was the one who started the fire that killed two people.

Some of the recent plots involving even the best-loved characters have been less than believable. Hayley Cropper’s assisted-death scene last year was a profoundly moving piece of TV drama.

Written with brilliance and sensitively, and superbly acted by Julie Hesmondhalgh as Hayley and David Neilson as her husband Roy, it was one of the highlights of the television year.

Shunting Roy into a potentially romantic relationship with widow Cathy Matthews (Melanie Hill) so soon after feels forced: a cynical device to give him something to do now that he’s at a loose end.

It’s effectively a betrayal of an engagingly complex character that the writers and Neilson himself have worked hard to develop over the years.

The hour-long live episode — the soap’s first since its 50th anniversary in 2010 — is ostensibly to mark ITV’s 60th birthday, which falls today. Realistically, it looks more like a straw-grasping attempt to revive a flagging programme that’s been shedding viewers faster than Elizabeth Berkley shed her clothes Showgirls.

One episode last December, the month when the soaps are usually enjoying a pre-Christmas audience boost, was watched by just 4.9 million people in the UK.

Even allowing for the fact that soaps no longer generate the kind of telephone-number viewing figures they once did, this was still a disastrous performance by any measure.

It’s an indication of how bad things are at the moment that tonight’s episode pivots on the Platts — surely the most boring and irritating fictional family on television — being menaced by the world’s most useless criminal. Callum doesn’t look capable of dealing a hand of poker let alone hard drugs.

I’ll never understand why soaps need to do live episodes in the first place, given the potential for disaster. Props can fail to work, actors can fluff their lines (as a mortified Jo Joyner did in February’s live EastEnders), miss their cues or dry completely.

The video recording technology developed in the 1960s eliminated all those potential problems, so what’s the point of burdening the less experienced actors with extra pressure?

Preparations for the episode have been troubled. Some cast members were so terrified by the prospect of performing live, they simply pulled out. Corrie veteran Barbara Knox, who plays Rita, fell ill during rehearsals and had to be replaced by a stand-in.

There are reportedly worries in the ranks that the new producer, who takes over in January, will cull the cast.

Given how poor Coronation Street has been lately, someone bumping into the scenery might be the best bit of drama we see tonight.

[Dazzle]

Where did you get the above article Tammy? Whoever wrote it is no fan of Corrie...



I've been wondering if tonight's big shock will even be part of the Callum storyline? Perhaps the Rovers explodes with a full house of partygoers attending Lloyd and Andrea's leaving do, or perhaps someone gets mowed down in the street?

According to a few of the tabloids today, some of the last scenes in the episode are set away from the street. If true, I think that's likely to be the Callum storyline.

With the Corrie bosses desperate for a hit tonight I'm not ruling anything out (although I still think the most likely scenario is Callum's death).

[Perdita]

Wow ... Kylie

[lizann]

some of the acting was awful very panto and ott

was hoping callum would kill sarah or kylie or would get back up

[lizann]

some of the acting was awful very panto and ott

was hoping callum would kill sarah or kylie or would get back up

[tammyy2j]

Where did you get the above article Tammy? Whoever wrote it is no fan of Corrie...



I've been wondering if tonight's big shock will even be part of the Callum storyline? Perhaps the Rovers explodes with a full house of partygoers attending Lloyd and Andrea's leaving do, or perhaps someone gets mowed down in the street?

According to a few of the tabloids today, some of the last scenes in the episode are set away from the street. If true, I think that's likely to be the Callum storyline.

With the Corrie bosses desperate for a hit tonight I'm not ruling anything out (although I still think the most likely scenario is Callum's death).

Sorry meant to add source link

http://www.independent.ie/entertainm...-31551389.html

[Perdita]

Coronation Street star Alan Halsall was on standby to save the day if the soap's live episode went wrong last night.

The actor's character Tyrone Dobbs didn't feature in Wednesday night's action-packed episode, as he was looking after the kids at home while his partner Fiz Stape attended Roy Cropper's birthday party.

Halsall didn't have the night off though, as he was waiting in the wings to suddenly appear on our screens if a technical fault hit any of the live scenes.

Terence Maynard, who plays Tony Stewart, revealed the behind-the-scenes secret on ITV2's Coronation Street Live: Uncovered last night.

"They had a standby live scene, that they could have cut to. It was Alan Halsall," he explained.

"So they would have cut to him in the garden, doing whatever it is he was going to be doing! So he had to learn all that kind of stuff and be ready."

Cast and crew also pre-recorded a dress rehearsal which could have been cut to as a last resort in the event of a total technical failure.

Maynard featured in a tricky scene of his own on the night, as Tony teamed up with Todd Grimshaw to blow up Callum Logan's car.

Revealing that the explosion itself couldn't be rehearsed before going live, Maynard laughed: "We could only blow up one car! We rehearsed it once before with a 'pop', but it wasn't like that!"