Coronation Street/Trivia

• The Character Died with Him: Necessary for Blanche Hunt, as Maggie Jones herself had died in late 2009.
  • Also with Betty Williams, after Driver's death in 2011.
  • Anne Kirkbride sadly passed away in January 2015, aged only sixty. As with her onscreen mother, Blanche, Deirdre also died.
• The Danza: Betty Driver as Betty Williams (nee Turpin).
• Dawson Casting:
  • Nick Tilsley's current actor, Ben Price, is ten years older than his character's age.
  • While Sunita Alahan was born in 1978, Shobna Gulati was born in 1966.
  • Fourteen year old Bethany Platt is portrayed by nineteen year old Lucy Fallon.
    • The original actress chosen for to play current Bethany was 25 and was fired from the role for lying about her age to the producers (before her scenes got shot, thankfully).
• Dueling Shows: With Eastenders. Although they don't broadcast opposite each other, in the U.K. you're either a fan of one or the other. Or both.
• Fake Irish: A borderline example with the Connor family. While Michelle, Liam and Paul were presumably reared in England, they were born to Irish parents and seem to have kept close contact with Ireland (the parents returned to Dublin to live). Of the three, only the actor playing Paul has any known Irish ancestry and even his parents were English born.
• Fake Mixed Race: The baby that plays Ruby Dobbs is obviously much darker than one would expect from a person who is three-quarters white.
• Hey, It's That Guy!: From the current cast, Craig Charles of Red Dwarf fame plays Lloyd Mullaney; Keith Duffy from Boyzone plays Kiaran McCarthy; Alison King (Carla Conner) used to star in Dream Team on Sky One; Ben Price (Nick Tilsley) used to have roles in Footballer's Wives and Casualty; Kym Marsh from Hear'Say plays Michelle Conner; Alex Bain (Simon Barlow) used to be in adverts for Rice Krispies; and Chris Fountain took over the role of Tommy Duckworth in early 2011.
  • Plus, there's the list of people who have made brief guest appearances, which includes Sir Ian McKellen, Peter Kay and Prince Charles.
• I Am Not Spock: Helen Flanagan, a.k.a. Rosie Webster.
• McLeaned: The actress Amy Kelly left the show so Maddie Heath died from injuries inflicted on the night of the fire.
• Name's the Same: David Platt. If you don't get it, just google it.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Tracy Barlow. Played by various actors, with Dawn Acton and Kate Ford being one of the best-known.
  • Tracy's step-brother Peter has been played by six different actors. One even reappeared recently as a completely different character (Kirsty's father).
  • Most of the characters introduced as children.
  • Nick Tilsley. Twice, and both times as an adult.
  • Averted by Chesney - Sam Aston has played the character from a child to an adult.
• Post Script Season: Probably the ultimate example — it has essentially been on a series of postscript seasons since 1961. It was originally intended to be thirteen episodes long, with Coronation Street bulldozed in a Made for TV Movie. However, it proved so popular that a new series was commissioned, and it's been broadcasting more or less continuously to the present day.
• Reality Subtext: Sally Webster was scripted to reveal to her husband Kevin that she had cancer on Christmas Day, 2009. The storyline prompted Sally Dynevor, the actress playing her, to see a doctor and under go tests for the disease in order to research the role. Sally found out she had cancer hours after filming the scene where she told Kevin about the cancer, so when they shot the scenes where they told their on-screen daughters, the tears were real. The storyline was rewritten so that Sally (The Actress) was off-screen for six months whilst she was undergoing chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
• Real Life Relative:
  • Linus and James Roache, the real life sons of Bill Roache (who plays Ken Barlow) played his son and his grandson, respectively.
  • Brooke Vincent (Sophie Webster) and Ellie Leach (Faye Windass) are cousins in real life.
  • William Rush, who appeared in 2014 as one of the lads that bully Maddie in her room in the homeless hostel, is the real life son of Debbie Rush (who plays Anna Windass).
• Role-Ending Misdemeanor:
  • Averted with William Roache (Ken Barlow) and Michael LeVell (Kevin Webster) - both characters were written off the show whilst their actors were awaiting trial for sexual offences. Both actors were found not guilty, allowing the show to bring them back to the show.
  • Chris Fountain (Tommy Duckworth) was abruptly fired after a homemade rap video where he sang about rape was discovered online.
• Romance on the Set:
  • Tina O'Brien (Sarah-Louise Platt) dated Bruno Langley (Todd Grimshaw), the couple splitting up before their characters began dating.
  • She then began dating Ryan Thomas, who played Jason Grimshaw, Todd's brother and Sarah-Louise's future husband.
  • A more successful pairing is between Alan Halsall, who plays Tyrone Dobbs, and former Corrie actress Lucy-Jo Hudson, who played Katy Harris from 2002-2005, who have been married since 2009 and welcomed a baby girl four years later.
• You Look Familiar: Tim Metcalf's actor Joe Duttine played a completely different character in 2010 — he was one of two policemen, DS Max Carr, who investigated Gail's alleged murder of Joe McIntyre.