Coronation Street is the gold standard by which UK soap serials are based.

It started in 1960 or thereabouts and up to that point - soap operas had been about glamorous folks working in nice places. the dialogue was pastiche Rattigan and Noel Coward - dead posh, with a few silly working class types (cleaner women and people in lowly positions) for light relief.

Coronation Street was based on life in a street in a tough Northern town - at one point it was supposed to be Salford near Manchester. It was a real breath of fresh air - the accents were authentic, the dialogue a pastiche of Alan Sillitoe, Shelagh Delaney and Keith Waterhouse, the characters intelligent and believable.


Inevitably it turned into a parody of itself. However it still has adherents amongst the more intelligent members of the community. The mighty Alan bennet (a truly wonderful writer) is said to be a fan.

I stopped watching in 1964.