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
Humour in Coronation Street from the scene of the crime. Coerced into performance in compensation for attacking Les in an earlier appearance, rock band Status Quo played at the reception. But the party was ruined when: 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