Coronation Street Elsie and Bet. Other recurring archetypes include the war veteran such as Albert Tatlock (Jack Howarth), Percy Sugden (Bill Waddington) and Gary Windass (Mikey North), the bumbling retail manager like Leonard Swindley (Arthur Lowe), Reg Holdsworth (Ken Morley), Norris Cole (Malcolm Hebden), quick-tempered, tough tradesmen like Len Fairclough (Peter Adamson), Jim McDonald (Charles Lawson), Tommy Harris (Thomas Craig) and Owen Armstrong (Ian Puleston-Davies), and the perennial losers such as Stan and Hilda, Jack and Vera, Les Battersby (Bruce Jones), Beth Tinker (Lisa George) and Kirk Sutherland (Andrew Whyment). Villains are also common character types such as Tracy Barlow (Kate Ford),
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