Review – Corrie!, The Lowry Theatre

One of Phil’s earliest memories is of being very upset, knocking on the bathroom door and shouting, “Mum, Martha Longhurst* is dead.”

Yes, Coronation Street has been going for 50 years; Phil has been watching for most of those; Jonathan Harvey has been working on it for six years; and he must have spent an entire afternoon writing this “affectionate romp through 50 years”: Corrie!

Still, the “clip” genre is a forgiving one and it has to be said that the Whingers didn’t feel that their trip all the way to the Manchester and back had been at allwasted.

Indeed the day passed swiftly and happily with much whinging to be done about (inter alia): the architectural horror of Euston station, the fact that small children are permitted in the Quiet Coach on a Virgin Train; that parents don’t think twice about seating their small children in the Quiet Coach on a Virgin Train; the lack of air-conditioning and in-seat lighting on Virgin Trains, the ludicrously labyrinthine ticket pricing structure requiring minutes of tortuous explanation over the PA (even in the Quiet Carriage) from what used to be called the Guard and the lack – despite its canal side setting – of a decent walking route from Manchester to The Lowry.