As far as soaps go this is by far my all time favorite

mulhollandman

Coronation Street is now nearing its 50th birthday and even today it remains one of Britain's most popular series. The reason for its continuous popularity is very simple. It has good story lines, humor and wit, drama and tension, colorful characters, excellent lightning and direction, simple locations and it evokes the majority's emotions on a weekly basis.

These things are very simple and most soap operas incorporate them but Coronation Street has the upper hand continuously because they juggle all them in every episode and there is never central focus on any particular theme it is all dealt with equality of division.

The star of the show is not the actors or the story lines but the characters. When people tune in they do not do so to watch Bruce Jones who plays Les Battersby but they do so to watch Les Battersby. Les Battersby and the other characters have become as real as the actors that are playing them and in most cases more famous. The characters are wonderfully written and in most cases portrayed by very talented individuals who seldom over act but are willing. They successfully cover a wide spectrum of human emotions and their acting ability should be honored considering that being an actor on Coronation Street could sometimes mean story lines that require 24:7 attendances on the set.

The story lines are very good also and they always have two to three separate story lines going at all times. But there will always be a major theme covered over a pro-longed period. At the moment they are dealing with Post-Natal Depression a topic that has been touched upon before in many soaps but not as vividly as it has been done in Coronation Street. Not only is it a hooking storyline but also it is very educational on it can manifest itself in different people and the adverse effect it can have on the families and friends that are involved.

Coronation Street has consistently been the publics favorite for many years because of it's down to earth approach to characters and story lines but it only loses out to other soaps because it has a reluctance to over do it with crime or natural disaster stories. It does from time to time have larger than life story lines consisting of serial killers or murders but these are few and far between. Unfortunately it's attempts to keep with up with rival soaps means that it is transmitted four times a week also means that this provides me with my only fault and this is viewers can be over exposed to heavy story lines and this can be quite daunting even for the most hardcore fan. Other than this I would say you could do a lot worse.

score 9/10

mulhollandman 21 September 2006

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1480322/