Coronation Street —the musical
WITH a seemingly endless supply of TV stations, along with catch-up TV and internet sites, it seems that the telly watcher has never had a better choice.
But it also means that long gone are the days when the nation would grind to a halt to watch a dramatic soap storyline like ‘Who Killed JR?’ on Dallas or the Den and Angie divorce on Eastenders.
But while viewing figures for soaps have undoubtedly dropped from their heyday, there are still hundreds of thousands of loyal Irish viewers who tune in for the requisite three or four viewings a week.
The recent ‘Who Killed Frank Foster?’ storyline on Coronation Street might have drawn millions more back in the 1990s but it still pulled in lots of viewers both here and in the UK.
And it’s that sense of loyalty that the makers of a new musical on Corrie are surely banking on. Coronation Street — Street of Dreams comes to Ireland next week and boasts a who’s who of iconic characters that have graced the Weatherfield cobblestones.
Bet Lynch, Ken Barlow, Elsie Tanner and many more will be part of the show while TV host and massive Corrie fan Paul O’Grady will act as narrator.
Also amongst the group will be the loveable stargazer, Curly Watts, who’s still thought of fondly 20 years after he left the Manchester backstreet.
Kevin Kennedy, who played the character, confides he wasn’t initially sure if it was a good idea to recreate one of Curly’s best remembered scenes on the show. It’s the moment when the supermarket manager showed girlfriend Raquel the star that he had named after her. Watching at home, millions of viewers sighed, ‘Aw!’
“When I first heard about the musical and that scene being picked, I thought, ‘I don’t really want people messing about with that’, because as a piece of work, it stands out on its own,” says Kevin.
“I thought, ‘It’s fine, leave it alone’. That was until I heard the music and then I thought, it complements it perfectly and putting the two together kind of rounds off that whole scene.”
Since leaving Corrie in 2003, Kevin has gone on to record albums and work in musical theatre, including a long stint in the Queen-themed musical We Will Rock You.
He’s always been open to going back to playing Curly and two years ago, he reprised his role for a spin-off DVD.
With the musical, Kennedy is keen to stress the labour of love it’s been for the producers and creators over the past three years.
“This is not your ‘get your tatty T-shirt, 50 years of Coronation Street’ type of thing,” he says. “This is a real classy piece of work — a lot of time and effort has gone into it. I’m absolutely over the moon to be involved. I’ve got a big family in Ireland, I love playing Curly and my other great love is music. So doing this musical brings together Ireland, music and Curly, and that’s just fantastic for me.
“I’ve always regretted that Corrie never did an episode in Dublin because I thought it would be brilliant. It was down to the logistics that it never happened. I think it’s going to be great for all the real Corrie fans in Ireland to get to see the show.”
Even without a pair of glasses on, Kennedy is instantly recognisably as Norman Watts, who had straight hair and was ironically nicknamed Curly. Does it ever bother him to be so associated with the role?
“I’m very grateful to Norman because he’s opened doors for me — he has allowed me to spread my artistic wings into other areas of the arts. Now playing him again, it’s the best of both worlds. I bring this new skill to a character that I played before. It just opens up the whole thing and I think, you know, you can’t go back to a character and play it the way he was in the 1980s.
“And that’s what I love about the song — because it’s reflective but it’s in the moment — so does it really matter that Curly looks a bit older? It adds a great amount of charm to that particular scene because it’s almost like what could have happened.”
Trisha Ward, who is the lyricist and composer on the musical, had the difficult choice of who to pick for the new show.
“I had to be quite strict about picking those who can sing because I wanted the musical to have credibility,” she says. “There are lots of people in the current cast who want to be in the show but the slight problem we have is that they’ve got to film the TV show so we can only get them for some dates. “Katy Cavanagh, who plays Julie Carp, and Kym Marsh, who plays Michelle, are both in the current cast and are in the musical. As well as the stars, we also have an amazing cast of West End singers and a 25-piece orchestra — it’s a very big project.”
Trisha was involved with an album that came out to mark the 50th anniversary of the soap and ITV Studios wanted to see how that did with the audience before they would commit to the touring musical.
One of the people who was involved with that album was Brian Capron, who played serial killer Richard Hillman. He appeared on the soap for just under two years but the character, dubbed by his wife Gail as “Norman Bates with a briefcase”, had a lasting impact on the show’s history.
“They wanted me to do a song for the album that was based around that confessional episode in Corrie which was just me and Helen Worth, who plays Gail,” he says. “I thought it was fantastic and I was so proud and honoured that one of my particular scenes had been picked. I think it’s now one of the most atmospheric numbers in the musical.”
It’s hard to believe it’s almost 10 years since Richard Hillman died an icy death in the Manchester canal into which he’d driven his car (with family on board).
“It was two years of my life that were absolutely extraordinary, that I never thought were ever going to happen. This character just grew and he was very complex — you could see how much he loved his family but he was also so menacing. There was a thing about Richard Hillman — I don’t know how to describe it really — but he wasn’t a hateful character. People secretly liked him and it was so amazing how many children used to watch him.
“I often used to get people coming up to me in the supermarket with like six and seven-year-olds and saying there’s that horrible man on the telly and telling me, ‘She runs behind the settee when you come in’. I’d think why are you letting them watch it — they really shouldn’t be watching it!”
* Coronation Street — Street of Dreams comes to the O2, Dublin, on May 18 and 19. Tickets are €35 plus booking fee from Ticketmaster.
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