Tony Warren, the creator of the legendary ITV soap Coronation Street, had an earlier attempt at a soap opera titled Seven, Bessie Street. The script, discovered after his death in 2016, is now part of an exhibition at Salford Museum and Art Gallery.
Early Life and Career
Born Anthony McVay Simpson in Eccles, Warren adopted his stage name during his early acting career. He trained at the Elliott-Clarke Theatre School in Liverpool and became a regular on BBC Radio Children's Hour, performing alongside future Coronation Street stars Violet Carson and Doris Speed.
The Birth of Coronation Street
The idea for what became Coronation Street came to Warren in 1959 as he returned to Manchester by train. He woke BBC producer Olive Shapley, exclaiming: "Olive, I've got this wonderful idea for a television series. I can see a little back street in Salford, with a pub at one end and a shop at the other, and all the lives of the people there, just ordinary things and..." Shapley initially dismissed the idea as boring. However, Granada commissioned a script in 1960, and Warren chose Archie Street in Salford as the model for the fictional street. He wrote the first 13 episodes and continued as a consultant until his death.
Seven, Bessie Street: The First Soap Idea
Before Coronation Street, Warren wrote Seven, Bessie Street, a soap centred on a terraced street. The name Bessie Street is familiar to Corrie fans as the primary school attended by Weatherfield's children. According to Warren's friend David Tucker, the script was found among Warren's possessions after his death. Warren had instructed Tucker to destroy all unpublished works, but Tucker preserved Seven, Bessie Street with the condition that no one else could read it. Tucker described it as "quite obviously planned as a soap opera."
Other Works and Legacy
Warren also pitched a drama called Our Street to the BBC before reworking it as Florizel Street for Granada. Beyond Coronation Street, he devised the film Ferry Cross the Mersey and wrote the ITV series The War of Darkie Pilbeam. He penned several novels in the 1990s. Warren received the Royal Television Society's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010 and was made an MBE in 1994.
Upon Warren's death at age 79 in March 2016, William Roache, who played Ken Barlow from the first episode, said: "When I first met Tony I couldn't quite believe he'd created and written Coronation Street because he was no more than a young boy. It was his boyish energy... He was the father of Coronation Street and he gave us all so much." Helen Worth, who played Gail Platt for 42 years, added: "Tony was a genius of our time... He brought real life into our homes."
