Coronation Street place at university, and thus found his working-class background—as well as his parents, Frank and Ida (Frank Pemberton and Noel Dyson)—something of an embarrassment. The character was one of the few to have experienced life outside of Coronation Street. In some ways this predicts the growth of globalisation, and the decline of similar communities. In an episode from 1961, Barlow declares: "You can't go on just thinking about your own street these days. We're living with people on the other side of the world. There's more to worry about than Elsie Tanner and her boyfriends." Roache is the only remaining
Humour in Coronation Street Humour in Coronation Street Humour has featured strongly in "Coronation Street" since the programme's inception on 9 December 1960 airing on British Television. Reflecting on "Coronation Street"s survival for over five decades, former archivist and scriptwriter Daran Little suggests that most observers attribute the show's success to "two aspects: the mixture of comedy and drama, and the strength of the female characters." While most Coronation Street characters are used in a comedic capacity at some time or other, a number of characters have been used specifically for comedy throughout the show's history. The notoriously prissy, reserved and plain spinster Mavis