Cover Story
by Paul Challen
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An intriguing retrospective delves into TV's longest-miming series
                                                               40 YEARS ON CORONATION STREET
                                                                         Sunday; CSC
 It’s tough to find much wrong with 40 Years on Coronation Street, an excellent retrospective that traces the history of TV’s most enduring series. So go ahead and slot the following minor criticism into that “Nit-Picking” file: the program’s most representative line - the sound bite that sums up the whole Coronation Street magic and explains its staying power - is one that comes way too early in the 90-minute documentary.
   Just a few beats into it, Johnny Briggs, whom Street fans will recognize instantly as Mike Baldwin, looks squarely at the camera and says: “The street’s the star.”
   Indeed, no one actor or character can take credit for driving the series, nor is the show’s long-term success solely a product of great writing, clever promotion or expert technical production.
 What has really been drawing viewers to the show since Britain’s Granada Television first aired it in black and white on Dec. 9, 1960, has been its vivid depictions of gritty (and often sordid) life in northern England. It enhances that slice-of-life sensibility with in-depth portrayals of the relationships between the more than 3,000 characters who have passed through the doors of the Rovers Return pub in the show’s 5,000-plus episodes.
   Fans will have a chance to go back to the beginning and see for themselves. CBC will follow up the 40 Years special with a telecast of Coronation Street's debut episode.
   True to the down-to-earth nature of the series, 40 Years on Coronation Street is presented in a documentary style, interspersing clips from old episodes with interviews with actors, producers and writers. Particularly good are the parts where creator
 Tony Warren - who based the show on his boyhood experiences in the borough of Swinton in Manchester (a.k.a. Weather-field) - recalls how he tried to maintain the memory of coming home from the market in the early evening, just as the street lights were coming on and the fish-and-chip shops were starting to heat up. (It’s good that not all of Warren’s ideas stuck, though: he originally wanted to call his creation the much-less-appealing Florizel Street.)
   Narrated by Sir John Mills, 40 Years on Coronation Street relies on many of the actors for their view of the inner workings of the show. None of them has been as key to those thousands of plots and subplots as the one who has been on the series from the start - William' Roache, whose four-decade stint as Ken Barlowe has put him in The Guinness Book of World Records.
   Roache weighs in with many insights as to how he and the show have managed to keep going for so long. Street fans will be thrilled to see the Roache interview combined with clips of him in the show’s early days.
   Also contributing personal takes are celebs like Ben Kingsley and Cliff Richard, who, after hearing a character say she adored “that chubby Cliff Richard,” went on a weight-loss regime he still maintains.
   As quaint and earthy as the show is, you can't underestimate its production values and attention to minute details when you try to assess why Coronation Street has stayed on the air so long. In addition to being a writer on the show, Daran Little has authored several books and serves as the show’s official archivist. It’s his job to keep each character’s biography up to date, so that inconsistencies don’t occur.
                                                           Roache in the 1960s (left) and today
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 Street gang: cheers to 40 years
 (Imagine a character saying he has never been out of England in one episode, and then, a few years later, recalling a trip overseas. Such a slip-up would undoubtedly be pointed out oh the numerous Street fan websites.)
   “We have a pretty good sense by now of what the viewers want and don’t want from Coronation Street,” says Litde, who was in Toronto last month for the British Show, an annual cultural exhibition. “We don’t want to get people overly worried with too many ‘issues’ shows - our best success seems to be with domestic storylines.”
   But that doesn’t explain the success of Coronation Street in Canada, where it airs Mondays to Thursdays and again as a four-episode package on Sunday mornings. The show - also seen in the United States, Ireland, Sweden, New Zealand and Australia -does best with female viewers here, with nearly 40 per cent of them in the 35-49 age group.
   Kevin Kennedy, who has been playing the affable Curly Watts for 17 years, says one of the reasons Canadians adore the show is that it “probably appeals most to the ex-pats who see it as their link with home. It does not necessarily represent the England that is now, but more the one they left behind.”
   But Kennedy says there’s a hook for those with no British blood in them, too.
   “A lot of it has to do with the quality of many of the American soaps,” he insists. “They are not really up to scratch. We just have better standards, and the bottom line is that it is just a good program. It’s been a well-performed show for 40 years. It would never have lasted that long if it wasn’t a really well-produced program.”
COVER AND INSIDE PHOTOS: CBC. GRANADA TELEVISION