Coronation Street

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Long, long, long running British prime time soap (first airing 9 December 1960) -- long enough that a character in her fifties was originally introduced as a sexy young twentysomething. Also viewable in Ireland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Corrie (as it's known to its addicts) follows the lives of the residents of a typical working-class street in a Manchester Salford (Oop North) neighborhood.

Classic user of the Soap Wheel.

Please Note: As an on-going soap with no re-runs outside of the weekly omnibus, spoilers will not be tagged unless they refer to events that have yet to happen on-screen.

Tropes used in Coronation Street include:
  • The Alcoholic: Peter Barlow, although he got over it. Carla Connor.
  • Alone with the Psycho: Maya, among others.
  • Astral Projection: Played for laughs - Whilst working at the Butchers, Graeme Proctor started wearing Fred Elliott's trademark straw hat and speaking with Fred's Verbal Tic and some of his signature mannerisms. As Fred had died several years before Graeme arrived on the street, his son Ashley began wondering if he really was being possessed. Turns out it was just a joke Graeme was playing on Ashley, after Ashely's wife told him about Fred.
  • Attention Whore: David Platt's usual motivation for all his dirty deeds (the other reason being that he's usually just bored. His sister Sarah also revels in attention. Rosie and Sophie Webster too. In Sophie's case, it's more to do with her parents spending so much time fussing over Rosie or their own squabbling to pay as much attention to her.
  • Back from the Dead: Averted - Unlike other soaps, when someone dies in Corrie, they usually stay dead.
    • Teased, in the case of Richard Hillman, when his widow Gail started to receive cards from her deceased serial killer husband. Turned out it was her son David, playing a sick joke.
  • Birth-Death Juxtaposition: Maria finding out that she was pregnant on the same day that Liam was killed off.
    • Fiz going into premature labour and giving birth to baby Hope on the same night as the explosion in the joinery and tram crash which killed Ashley Peacock and Molly Dobbs, and Charlotte Hoyle died of injuries suffered at the hands of John Stape.
  • Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Molly Dobbs and Sean Tully.
    • Rosie Webster, although most people call her out on it.
  • Brainless Beauty: Jason Grimshaw and Rosie Webster.
  • Brick Joke: Jason Grimshaw being voted "Mr Gay Weatherfield" in 2009 is already pretty funny, since Jason is straight; but when Rosie Webster enlists him to help bring sister Sophie & her partner Sian back to Weatherfield as they struggle with coming out and Sophie question why Rosie brought Jason since he won't understand what they're going through, he replies with "Excuse me, I'm Mr Gay Weatherfield."
  • British Accents: Generally thick and Northern, with the occasional Londoner dropping by.
  • British Brevity: Averted. Celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2010 and is on 5 times a week.
  • Brought Home the Wrong Kid: Rosie Webster took her baby brother Jack to be in a photo shoot and ended up bringing home a baby girl instead.
  • Bunny Ears Lawyer: Roy.
  • Call Back: Way, way back in many cases.
  • Characterisation Marches On: As teenagers, David Platt was a Deadpan Snarker Sociopath and Rosie Webster was reasonably intelligent. By 2012, David's become a more likable and stable (Albeit still snarky) young man with a wife and step-son, and Rosie has repeatedly Took a Level In Dumbass and become increasingly vapid and self-absorbed.
  • Citizenship Marriage: There's currently one involving Tina's friend Xin. There have been others before though.
  • Clingy Jealous Girl: Sophie Webster tends to get extremely butthurt whenever Sian has a laugh with anyone but her.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Graeme Proctor, Raquel Watts, Roy Cropper to a certain extent.
  • Continuity Nod: Often a highlight of the show, in that it still features regular references and callbacks to older characters and storylines, often from decades ago. Hardly an episode goes by without a nod, whether it be to something two months old or twenty years
  • Crapsack World: Blanche Hunt's view of the world.
    • Frankly, Weatherfield itself, considering the amount of deaths/accidents/general misery present over the years. It's a wonder people still move to the street, considering pretty much every house/building has had multiple deaths in them (including a number of murders). Taken Up to Eleven with the 50th Anniversary special, with a freak tram accident demolishing one end of the street and killing/seriously wounding a number of residents.
      • Saying that, compared to Walford, Weatherfield is the happiest place on Earth.
  • Crazy Jealous Guy: Charlie Stubbs when he thought Tracey was cheating on him.
  • Dead Guy, Junior: Maria's son Liam.
    • Ashley & Claire Peacock renamed their son Freddie, to honor Ashley's recently deceased father Fred.
  • Deadpan Snarker: David Platt.
  • Domestic Abuse
  • Easily Forgiven: Averted with Kevin Webster, and his affair with Molly Dobbs - It was several months before his wife Sally forgave him, and even then they didn't get back together; whilst it took over a year for Molly's husband and Kevin's best friend Tyronne to even start rebuilding their friendship.
  • Estranged Soap Family
  • Even Evil Has Standards: David Platt - He may be a Deadpan Snarker Smug Snake Sociopath, but he's still opposed to abortion.
  • Family-Unfriendly Death: Most on-screen deaths tend to be non-gory ends such as heart attacks, while more gruesome deaths usually receive Gory Discretion Shots. However, some deaths unexpectedly avert this, such as Charlie Stubbs, who was quite explicitly smashed over the head with a statue by Tracy Barlow, and fatally wounded.
  • Family Relationship Switcheroo: Betty Williams with her son Gordon Clegg, who was initially raised as her nephew and Danny Baldwin who grew up believing Mike was his uncle, learns he is his father.
  • Fille Fatale: Rosie Webster.
  • Genki Girl: Rosie Webster, Cheryl the lap-dancer, Joanne Jackson - all who fit the trope well.
  • Grandma, What Massive Hotness You Have!: Liz McDonald depending on who you ask.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Ashley Peacock, during the aftermath of the Joinery explosion - He held up part of the ceiling to stop it collapsing on Peter Barlow and Nick Tilsley, knowing full well he wouldn't be able to get out when it came down.
  • Hot Mom: Michelle, dear lord Michelle. Maria Connor and Tracy Barlow also qualify.
  • Hypocrite: Sally Webster, because of her insistence that Fiz was involved with John Stape's crimes, with the justification that Fiz must have known what her husband was doing, because the idea of her not realising was preposterous. Cue practically every other character responding with "You didn't realise what Kevin was doing."
    • Brian Packham, giving David and Kylie Platt stick over what they give Max for his school dinners, whilst stuffing down a bag of chips and being in no physical shape to criticize anyone's eating habits. He even goes so far as to say that all teachers at the school are going to be checking what students bring to eat from home. Lampshaded by David and Kylie.
  • Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: John Stape.
  • Intergenerational Friendship: Chesney and Kirk.
  • Jerkass: Everybody falls into this at least once.
  • Jerkass Facade: Graham Proctor is letting people think that he two timed Tina for Xin, so they think that she's a victim and he's a jerk who cheated on her, when It's really Tina's plan to get Xin a Citizenship Marriage.
  • Karma Houdini: Leanne Battersby, who has dodged prison at least twice.
    • Owen Armstrong is quickly becoming this.
    • David Platt was becoming this, before he had a Heel Realization and deliberately went on a rampage through the street, attacking several residents for the sole purpose of getting himself arrested because his mother refused to report him the police for pushing her down the stairs after he found she had his girlfriend abort the child he wasn't aware of. To hammer the point home, after he was charged he went and apologized to the people he attacked.
    • Tracy Barlow, she was found guilty of murder and is still out on the streets due to mistake by the forensic investigator who's work convicted her making a mistake on another case. That being said, it made Becky's dose of Laser-Guided Karma all the sweeter.
  • Live Episode: Between 9th December 1960 and 3rd February 1961, all of the Friday episodes were this.
    • As part of the 40th & 50th Anniversary celebrations, the 9th December episodes were also broadcast live.
  • Long Runner: Again, Coronation Street started in December 1960 - As of 17th September 2010, it is THE Long Runner, as it became the world's longest-running TV soap opera currently in production.
    • This also counts for William Roache, who has played Ken Barlow for that entire period.
  • Meganekko: Back in the day, Deirdre.
  • Miles Gloriosus: Kevin Webster.
  • Mr. Fanservice: Plenty, though probably the best example was Adam Rickitt, the second actor to play Nick Tilsley. Perhaps a touch of Viewers are Morons as well, since Nick's original actor, Warren Jackson was sacked and replaced by Rickitt simply for not being sexy enough, despite the widespread opinion that Jackson was a much better actor than Rickitt.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Rosie Webster.
    • Tracy Barlow too. Both when Dawn Acton and Kate Ford played her.
    • Tina McIntyre! Having been voted Sexiest Female for 3 years in a row..
  • My Local: The Rovers Return.
  • Never Trust a Trailer: Deliberately invoked with during the promotion of the show's fiftieth anniversary week, which was given the tagline "Four Funerals and a Wedding," implying that four major characters would bite the dust. As it turned out, three major characters actually did die, namely Ashley Peacock, Molly Dobbs and Charlotte Hoyle. The fourth casualty was a nameless background extra, who got mentioned in passing by a firefighter during the live episode.
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: After fatally beating Charlotte Hoyle to death shortly before the tram crash, John Stape later decided to place her body near the crash site, hoping to make it look as if she had been struck and killed by debris during the crash. A policewoman found him, and he claimed to have dragged her out of the debris -- whereupon the policewoman examined her body and found that she wasn't actually dead. In a subversion of the trope, it turned out she had massive brain damage and would only have lived on in a vegetative state, resulting in her family deciding to pull the plug on her.
  • Nietzsche Wannabe: Rosie Webster, Sophie Webster, Hayley Cropper - all very much female examples of the trope.
  • No Accounting for Taste: Anyone Les Battersby hooks up with, arguably.
  • No Bisexuals: Todd Grimshaw, after a loving relationship with a girl, discovers he is also attracted to males. Apparently this means he will only ever be attracted to males in future.
  • Noodle Incident: What Tracy Barlow did behind bars involving chocolate and £50.
  • Not Quite Dead: John Stape. He falls off a hospital rooftop, lands on concrete, and looks pretty dead after he's hit the ground. A few minutes later, the police report that he's disappeared, indicating that he came round and was well enough to get up and run away.
  • Oop North
  • Parental Favouritism: The Webster family.
  • Plucky Comic Relief: Les Battersby, Kirk Sutherland, Jack and Vera Duckworth, Cilla Battersby, Norris Cole and more recently Graeme Proctor.
  • Pun-Based Title: In shop names, not in the name of the series itself.
    • Such as "Underworld"- an underwear factory.
    • Roy's Rolls, a cafe which puns on "Rolls Royce".
  • Put on a Bus
  • Remember the New Guy?: Xin Chiang was first introduced in February 2011, for the pupose of a storyline involving Graeme marrying her so she can stay in the UK. You wouldn't realise this if you weren't already watching the show, since Tina keeps remarking that Xin's her best friend and she already has existing relationships with the likes of Graeme Proctor and David Platt, despite never being mentioned once in the previous two and a half years Tina has been on the show.
  • Retcon: Surprisingly rare, but Mike Baldwin's nephew Danny (and his family) being introduced was certainly one, as Mike had previously been stated to be an only child.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: David Platt had one after a massive Trauma Conga Line drove him over the edge, smashing every single thing he could find in the street with a piece of scaffold pipe. Subverted, in that David didn't do it out of revenge, but because his mother refused to press charges for his pushing her down a flight of stairs.
  • Running Gag: Fred proposing to just about every woman he fancies.
  • A Simple Plan: Just about anything attempted by Les Battersby.
  • Smoking Is Cool: Deirdre Barlow. Five packs of Marlboros a day have altered her voice from "girly" to "pre-op tranny" forever.
  • Smug Snake: David Platt and Tracey Barlow.
  • Soapland Christmas
  • Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome: In one notable case, two kids went upstairs to wash their hands and reappeared about five years older in the next episode.
  • Soap Wheel
  • Something's Different About You Now: One of the most popular characters is Hayley (née Howard) Patterson, a transsexual woman.
  • Spoiled Brat: Most of Gail's children, the Webster kids, etc. Tracy Barlow is often seen as an adult version of this.
  • Suddenly Sexuality: With both of the show's coming out stories, with Todd Grimshaw and Sophie Webster respectively, their realization that they were attracted to the same sex came rather out of nowhere, as both had been in healthy heterosexual relationships without any hint they might be gay before this. However, their actual storylines of coming out were handled fairly well, apart from their very sudden start.
    • Sophie's storyline was planned out two years before it started, with Sacha Parkinson being hired specifically for her eventual role as Sophie's girlfriend. She appeared for more than a year on the show as a build-up to Sophie's coming out with the groundwork for it definitely being present. A great deal of it was non-verbal by both actors, but there were clear flare-ups of jealousy and possessiveness on both sides.
  • Switched At Birth: Michelle's son. It's just been forgotten though.
  • Ted Baxter: The whole Webster family. Also, Norris Cole.
  • Teen Pregnancy: Sarah-Louise Platt. Twice (though the second didn't end well).
    • And more recently Katie Armstrong.
  • Took a Level In Dumbass: Rosie Webster who seems to shed a dozen IQ points every year. As a teen she was a good student but as she got older she turned vapid and shallow eventually ending up a Brainless Beauty who thinks Plato was a woman.
  • Transsexualism: Hayley, in one of the better fictional portrayals.
  • The Unfavorite: Sophie Webster.
  • Verbal Tic: Fred Elliott - Fred had a couple, I say Fred had a couple.
    • Jim MacDonald also has one, so he does.
  • Wedding Day: Over fifty of them.
  • Wham! Episode: Countless ones over the years, usually as the climax of a major story, but the 50th Anniversary tram crash may be the best example.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Done rather egregiously with Les Battersby. After his actor was suspended following a scandal, the character was temporarily Put on a Bus, supposedly going on tour as a roadie for a Status Quo tribute band. However, his actor ended up being fired while suspended, so viewers expected a Bus Crash to explain why he wasn't coming back from tour. Instead... nothing, he was never mentioned again. This meant he vanished from the face of the earth, leaving his wife, adopted son and also an ex-wife (and two daughters who came and went) never speaking of him again or wondering where he went.
    • FINALLY averted in 2011, five years after he'd vanished, by Les now being mentioned (and things like cards from him or photos of him being around) as normal, when appropriate. Predictably, they are treating it as though they had never stopped mentioning him, and don't explain where he is or why he vanished.
  • Who's Your Daddy?: Molly and her baby.
  • Um, well, most of the tropes in The Catalogue by now, given the longevity of the series. More than once, in many cases.
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