New posts

A little forum update...We're planning an upgrade.

Find out more about what's planned and how you can help support the forum
Click here for the details

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="cobbles" data-source="post: 237245" data-attributes="member: 5138">Ken Barlow (1960 - 2013, 2014 - Present)[ATTACH=full]22590[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]22591[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]22589[/ATTACH]Ken Barlow was one of the original characters on Coronation Street introduced on the 9th December 1960 - alongside the rest of the Barlow family. The character has been portrayed by William Roache for 59 years now, with it seemingly like he’s as much part of the street as the Rovers Return, The Kabin or the cobbles. He truly is a fixture of the show. As a forewarning, I normally try to keep these to under an A4 page for easy reading. It seems unlikely that will be possible here, such is the character history in this case.   Ken was introduced as a bright young thing who was at university studying English and History, at the time a remarkable achievement for a kid from Coronation Street. Ken was not at all proud of where he came from, much to his working class father Frank’s dissapointment. This was evident quickly in the show when Frank hit out at Ken for wanting to take a friend to dine where Ida worked. The tension would boil over to a higher level when Ken decided to go on a ban the bomb march, with Frank having served in World War 2 this did not go down well. In a similar way that Elsie and Ena represented completely different generations, Frank and Ken were engineered to demonstrate male different generations and family issues that it could cause.The character of Ken has been described as both a ladies man and a bore - a character who can be relied upon for a good old courtship storyline or to give a lecture on philosophy to an unenthusiastic youngster with no hint of oddity about the two. At the core Ken is the ordinary man, a youngster with ideals and dreams quickly crushed by reality who managed to carve out a place in his life - in Ken’s case on the same street for 60 years but nonetheless a place. His first marriage was to Valerie Barlow (nee Tatlock) with whom he had Peter and Susan - his first children. The relationship was a rocky marriage at times - with Valerie at one point leaving to live in Glasgow following Ken’s affair with Jackie Marsh. Valerie died in 1971 following a blaze caused by a faulty hairdresser leaving Ken a single father with two young children. Bill Roache described the following scenes of him walking through the charred building as ‘most enjoyable and satisfying moments in Coronation Street’Ken then entered into what could generously be described as a rebound marriage with Janet Reid. With Janet’s hatred of Ken’s children, either stemming from jealousy or uncomfortability with it and her decision to pack them off to boarding school it was clearly this was not a marriage with long legs, and drove the generally placid Ken to violence towards Janet. They split in 1974. A few years later in 1977 Janet would return - when Ken rejected her request she committed suicide. Following that storyline the character took a somewhat background role until Dierdre arrived. A romantic relationship quickly ensued with a marriage between Ken and Diedre in 1981. This would lead to perhaps one the most famous love triangles in British soap operas when Dierdre went off for an affair with Mike Baldwin, a storyline that captured the nation's imagination so much the result of the final showdown was shown in Old Trafford the home of Manchester United in the UK on the scoreboard reportedly. He became an adoptive father to Tracy but the marriage like all of Ken’s marriages - and most marriages in the show - had its ups and downs. The affair would also turn an already frosty relationship between ‘intellectual lefty’ Ken and ‘business minded’ Mike into a far more personal rivalry and bitter relationship that would last until Mike Baldwin died of Alzhiemers in Ken’s arms in 2006 and span Mike’s marriage to Ken’s daughter Susan. A feud that would provide some classic bar brawls and fisticuffs down the years. There were affairs for both Ken and Dierdre in the 1990s that sent the two their separate ways, but reconciliation eventually followed with the remarriage the viewers were crying out for taking place. Deirdre would pass away offscreen in 2016, following the unexpected death of actress Anne Kirkbride who played her. Throughout much of the marriage Dierdre’s acerbic and blunt as a knife mother would be a thorn in Ken’s side - especially when she began living with them - providing some of the most memorable comic moments in the show such as Christmas at the Barlows and Blanches goes to the AA meeting. Ken’s complicated relationship with manipulative and scheming adopted daughter Tracy, alcoholic and eventually recovered alcoholic Peter Barlow and his grandchildren would form the greater part of his storylines throughout the last twenty or so years.In recent years members of his extended family have returned to the street, bringing Adam and Daniel back to the street and creating a much stronger connection to the other characters in the show in the post-Deirdre world for Ken on the street.There’s so much more that I could have included in this but didn’t want it dragging on for pages (him characterising his neighbours as Lazy and seeing the unkind side of Len Fairclough’s hand make contact with his face, the fall storyline, more about Denise Osbourne and Daniel Osbourne’s first stint...)A dozen paragraphs is simply not to justice to perhaps the most iconic British TV character besides Doctor Who, a constant living link to the show's past. Of course with Bill Roache being 88 there’s clearly not an indefinite future ahead, but he’s expressed a desire to the first 100 year old actor on the show - and bloody good luck to him. You could write a feature length documentary about the life of Ken Barlow, but what will be the final scene?</blockquote>

Verification: Who played JR Ewing?