Coronation Street "Rest Assured": the 1972 Corrie spin-off

[Mel O'Drama]

Rest Assured was a proposed comedy drama that would be a spin-off from Coronation Street in much the same way as Pardon The Expression was between 1965 and 1966.

The premise of the series was to follow the comic misfortunes of Street characters Ray Langton and Jerry Booth as played by Neville Buswell and Graham Haberfield and the series got as far as the recording of a half-hour pilot episode entitled Lift Off in 1972

http://coronationstreet.wikia.com/wiki/Rest_Assured


I can't remember ever hearing about this before. Now I'm completely intrigued. Jerry has been a quiet revelation to me in watching the show on DVD.

 

[James from London]

Never heard of it either. Yeah, Jerry was a brilliant character. The dynamic between he, Len, Ray and Deirdre in the builder's yard was great. The equivalent of Eileen, Steve, etc. in Street Cars nowadays, I guess.

 

[James from London]

 

[Mel O'Drama]

What a find!

That was brilliant and it was good to see some familiar faces. What a goer Mrs McClusky was before she remarried and went posh.

I took a peek on Corriepedia trying to work out where Ray and Jerry would have been at this point, and how they came to be selling insurance. I'm only a little the wiser.

One spooky coincidence I spotted: even though it seems never to have aired, the transmission date given for this episode on IMDb - 20th November 1972 - is the same day future Mrs Hunt Deirdre appeared in her first episode of Corrie.

 

[James from London]

What a find!

Credit must go to sunshineboyuk, formerly of this parish.

Yes, it’s good, isn’t it? No laughter track, which I think is a plus. It felt more like a half hour play than a conventional sitcom. It reminded me a bit of The Lovers in tone, and the YT comments mention The Likely Lads as well. Where and if it fits into the Corrie timeline is anyone’s guess. And who knew Ray Langton could sing?

It's written and directed by HV Kershaw, a Corrie mainstay, of course, and as you probably know, the father of Noreen Kershaw, aka Brookside's Kathy (and a sometime Corrie director herself).

One spooky coincidence I spotted: even though it seems never to have aired, the transmission date given for this episode on IMDb - 20th November 1972 - is the same day future Mrs Hunt Deirdre appeared in her first episode of Corrie.

Wow!

 

[Mel O'Drama]

It felt more like a half hour play than a conventional sitcom.

Yes - very much so.

It reminded me a bit of The Lovers in tone, and the YT comments mention The Likely Lads as well.

I can certainly see The Lovers in there. I've never got round to seeing The Likely Lads, but this suggests I might enjoy it.

Funnily enough, as I watched I was trying to find a frame of reference for what it felt like tonally. I ended up deciding it was like a more literate Carry On Loving. Probably the era as much as anything.

It's written and directed by HV Kershaw, a Corrie mainstay, of course, and as you probably know, the father of Noreen Kershaw, aka Brookside's Kathy (and a sometime Corrie director herself).

I certainly noticed and recognised HV Kershaw's name as a Corrie writer and producer, but that was as far as it went. If I knew he was Noreen's father, I'd successfully forgotten. And I don't think I knew she'd directed Corrie either.

Credit must go to sunshineboyuk, formerly of this parish.

Oh, nice. It's good to know he's still sharing the soap love.

 

[James from London]

as I watched I was trying to find a frame of reference for what it felt like tonally. I ended up deciding it was like a more literate Carry On Loving. Probably the era as much as anything.

I guess it's that "the permissive society is happening somewhere, but not to me" vibe that also ran through Rising Damp and Man About the House.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

I guess it's that "the permissive society is happening somewhere, but not to me" vibe that also ran through Rising Damp and Man About the House.

Yes. That's it exactly.

It's a fascinating time, and this angle in particular always feels like it probably (secretly) represented the reality that most films didn't show us.

future Mrs Hunt Deirdre

Oops. Of course I meant the "future Mrs Langton". She already was Miss Hunt.

 

[James from London]

It's a fascinating time, and this angle in particular always feels like it probably (secretly) represented the reality that most films didn't show us.

I remember listening to some Radio 4-type show about the Carry Ons that described the lives of most of the characters in Carry On Camping (i.e. perpetually sexually frustrated) as more representative of the actual time-period (late 60s) than the cooler, artier movies of the same era would have us believe, while the group of hippies Barbara Windsor goes off with at the end symbolise the free-love fantasy of the way things were "supposed" to be.

Then there's the adage that, outside of Carnaby Street and the like, the swinging sixties didn't happen for most people until some time in the '70s. I wonder if that's where the Confessions of a ... and Adventures of a ... films came in, or whether the likes of Robin Askwith and Barry Evans were simply living out the X-rated fantasies of Richard Beckinsale and Richard O'Sullivan's small-screen equivalents? Speaking of which, have you seen this two-part C4 documentary? It's very interesting, if a tiny bit more superficial than I was hoping for:

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/saucy-secrets-of-the-british-sex-comedy/on-demand/75354-001

 

[Mel O'Drama]

I remember listening to some Radio 4-type show about the Carry Ons that described the lives of most of the characters in Carry On Camping (i.e. perpetually sexually frustrated) as more representative of the actual time-period (late 60s) than the cooler, artier movies of the same era would have us believe, while the group of hippies Barbara Windsor goes off with at the end symbolise the free-love fantasy of the way things were "supposed" to be.

That sounds about right.

Speaking of which, have you seen this two-part C4 documentary? It's very interesting, if a tiny bit more superficial than I was hoping for

Nope - I wasn't aware of this one. I just clicked in and watched the first five minutes (up to someone called "Ben Dover" talking) and I stopped myself, thinking I'll save it to watch of an evening. Over the weekend, with any luck, or early next week.

Even those five minutes reinforced what you were saying, though. The fact that porn was banned when these comedies were first made, for example - especially when paired with the whispers of sexual liberation - lends itself to a combination of sexual innocence and curiosity, which would be the prism through which characters in The Lovers or Man About The House saw the world.

The sex comedy is such a curious genre. The ones I've seen have been pretty terrible - and neither sexy nor funny - but there's something almost charming in their representation of a very specific window of time. As was said in the opening of the documentary, younger people simply would not understand what they were all about. I mean, I have enough trouble trying to make sense of it.