Tony Warren: 1936-2016

British television has lost one of its greatest visionaries. On the night of Tuesday 1^st March, Coronation Street creator Tony Warren died after a short illness, surrounded by his friends. As the mind behind the world’s longest-running and most successful soap opera, Warren’s contribution to the television industry cannot be understated.

Growing up in Eccles, just outside of Manchester, he would spend many a day hidden under the table at his grandparents’ house, listening in on the conversations going on between his grandmother and her friends. It was these words, phrases and speech patterns that stuck with Warren as he went onto pursue a career in the entertainment industry, and would later form a key ingredient in Coronation Street’s unique appeal.

Warren first appeared on radio show Children’s Hour alongside future Corrie legend Violet Carson, before attending – and being expelled from - drama school in Liverpool. He later moved to London, where he was given a role on a television play. He also began to dabble in scriptwriting, which would later see him get a job in Granada Television back in Manchester, penning episodes of detective series Shadow Squad and adaptations of WE John’s Biggles novels – though Warren yearned to create his own show.

The idea for Florizel Street –  as it was then known – had long been forming in Warren’s mind. A serial about the lives of normal, working class characters living in the Salford terraces was a far cry from anything that had been seen on television before. Northern accents were virtually unheard of on British TV programmes, whilst soap operas in the United States would focus on the lives of the wealthy. It is therefore unsurprising to hear that Warren had to fight hard to get his idea accepted by television executives. One BBC producer described the idea as “a bore”, whilst another did not even acknowledge receipt of the script. However, Warren quickly made himself indispensable at Granada, and although many higher ups were reluctant to launch the serial, Warren persisted, and a dry run was given the go-ahead.

After receiving great acclaim from the employees at Granada, the newly renamed Coronation Street was commissioned for 13 episodes, which Warren scripted single-handedly. Drawing from his experiences growing up in a matriarchal society, Warren was able to construct dialogue that exuded realism for his female characters, from razor-tongued battleaxe Ena Sharples, to haughty Rovers landlady, Annie Walker. In Ken Barlow, he created a character that would long – but ultimately fail – to escape the drudgery of northern life, whilst classy Elsie Tanner would go onto become a TV legend.

Coronation Street continued to rise in the ratings, and it became apparent that Warren would not be able to continue to write the episodes alone. Rather than sharing his baby with others, he decided to leave Granada, though none of his other writing projects were able to garner any real attention from the critics.

After recovering from various drink and drugs problems, Warren returned to Granada in the 1970s in the role of a consultant, a position that he has enjoyed ever since. In addition to this, Warren wrote a small number of novels in the early 1990s, before being awarded an MBE in 1994. In 2008, he received an honorary degree from Manchester Metropolitan University “for his contribution to ground-breaking television and creative writing which has helped put Manchester and Salford on the cultural map”, and the naming of the Tony Warren building at Media City in 2014 reflects the great respect that the television industry continued to have for him.

At the time of his death, Coronation Street is still one of the UK’s top rated television shows, and, though he has now given up on his dreams of the past, still features Warren’s creation Ken Barlow in a regular role. A true genius, Warren will be sadly missed, but long remembered for his far-reaching and long-lasting influence on British television.