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
Coronation Street: Out of Africa Coronation Street: Out of Africa Coronation Street: Out of Africa is a 2008 spin-off film featuring locals from the British soap opera "Coronation Street", who visit the luxury resort of Sun City, South Africa. Cilla Battersby-Brown (Wendi Peters), the mother from hell, brought her son and other "son" over to Africa to win a competition for $500,000 The story begins soon after John Stape's (Graeme Hawley) kidnapping of Rosie Webster (Helen Flanagan) was revealed in the main show. In the soap, Fiz Brown (Jennie McAlpine) receives bad news from her mother, Cilla (Wendi Peters), about her brother, Chesney (Sam Aston),