Interview with Tony Warren

The Coronation Street Creator and former village resident on Hayfield’s star characters and his current involvement in ‘The Street’

How did you get into writing Corrie and did you ever dream it would be as big as it is today?

I wrote Coronation Street when I was 23.  I was already under contract to Granada and was working on the adaptation of Captain W.E. Johns’ Biggles  books. I didn’t enjoy this at all because I knew nothing about planes.  I begged to be allowed to write something I knew about and the result was Florizel Street – that was the show’s original working title.  
I thought it might last one year, let alone 50.

Who has been your favourite character over the years and why?

I’ve never been able to have favourite characters –  it would be like having favourite children.  But, today, these many decades on, I suppose I can admit to having a soft spot for Ena, Elsie and Annie who were there from the very beginning.  And for Arthur Lowe’s performance too.  He played Leonard Swindley.

Arthur was a true legend of Hayfield. Were there lots of characters in the village then?

Little Hayfield was full of characters. One of my favourites was Vicky Slack, a tiny woman with bright twinkling eyes and curly hair, always in trousers.  She smoked a pipe and shot her own breakfast. And her towering son, Johnny, had a sports car which he was said to have assembled from a kit.

What was your involvement with Hayfield?

For the record I did not grow up in Hayfield.  Neither did I write the first episode in the Lantern Pike Inn in Little Hayfield.  There is some confusion about this because when the first episode aired I had rented a cottage in Little Hayfield.  It is true to say that many early episodes were written in a corner of the pub (I believe they have a framed note from me confirming this) but I had never even been to Hayfield at the time I wrote the very first episode, nor had I met Pat Phoenix (Elsie Tanner) who subsequently introduced me to the village.
When I first knew Pat she was living in a rented cottage in Little Hayfield.
The house Pat found for me belonged to the Landlady of the Lantern Pike Inn. It was a small whitewashed, furnished cottage tucked away at the back of Clough Lane.  The rent was three guineas a week. Last time I went back to look at it, it had been all poshed-up.
   
What are you up to at the moment?

Nowadays I am a consultant to Coronation Street. This means keeping a very close eye on every aspect of the show.  Every month I go out to lunch with the producer.  We choose restaurants where the tables are far apart and put our heads close together. We keep our voices down as we go through every house, every business and all of the characters.

2010 is Coronation Street’s 50th Anniversary
www.itv.com/Soaps/coronationstreet/

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