Coronation Street reached a low of eight million in February 1973, when Pat Phoenix quit as Elsie Tanner, Violet Carson (battleaxe Ena Sharples) was written out for most of the year due to illness, and Doris Speed (haughty landlady Annie Walker) took two months' leave due to bereavement. The audience of ITV's other flagship soap opera "Crossroads" increased markedly at this time, as its established cast, such as Meg Richardson (Noele Gordon), grew in popularity. These sudden departures forced the writing team to quickly develop characters who had previously stood in the background. The roles of Bet Lynch (Julie Goodyear), Deirdre Hunt
Hooker with a heart of gold character of Nancy in Charles Dickens' novel "Oliver Twist" and the stage musical derived from it, "Oliver!". In television history, the ""tart with a heart"" has become an important archetype in serial drama and soap opera, especially in Britain. During the 1960s, the character of Elsie Tanner in British series "Coronation Street" set the mold for future characters such as Bet Lynch (also "Coronation Street"), Kat Slater, Stacey Slater and Dawn Swann (all three characters from the British soap opera "EastEnders"). Characters of this nature are often depicted as having tragic lives, but put on a front when in public