Doctor Who Vs. Coronation Street @ 65, Part 7: 1976-1978

By 1976, Corrie was in decline, so Bill Podmore was

appointed to give the series a facelift and soon a new,

now iconic title sequence starred a cat for the first

time. Established as a kitchen-sink drama in the

Sixties, the show received a much needed injection

 of humour - under Podmore's producership ratings stabilised. An episode in April 1977 gained almost

21 million viewers, the highest figure of the decade.

These three years on the Street featured Geoffrey Beevers (as Liston in episode 1768), and a total of

twenty-six Doctor Who cast and crew connections:

• Geoffrey Bateman (Lightfoot) was Dymond in Nightmare of Eden
• Lois Baxter (Marie) was Lamia in The Androids of Tara
• Mary [Veronica] Healey (Thelma here; Yvonne, 1990) was a Killjoy in The Happiness Patrol
• William [Denys] Hoyland (Hardcastle) voiced Premier Jaeger for Big Finish's Live 34 (2005)
• Philip Bretherton (Rod here; Weston, 1991; Ian Davenport, 2005) voiced Plenipotentiary Suskind for Arrangements for War (2004), Scrivener for Recorded Time, D'Urberville, Heathcliff and Darcy for A Most Excellent Match (both 2011), and Vituperon for The Devil's Armada (2014)
• Colin Farrell (Holmes) was Benni in Orphan 55
• Arthur Kelly (Monkey) was Smithy in The Witchfinders
• John [Arthur] Duttine (Baker) voiced Hector for Exotron (2007)
• Derek Francis (Beaumont) and Barry Jackson (Garfield) both appeared in The Romans, as Nero and Ascaris - Jackson was also Jeff Garvey in Mission to the Unknown, and Drax in The Armageddon Factor
• Graham [Robert] Weston (Livesley) was Russell in The War Games, and De Haan in Planet of Evil
• Roy Boyd (Franklyn) was Driscoll in (part 2 of) The Hand of Fear
• Leslie [Gilbert] Dwyer (Dugdale) was Vorg (pictured) in Carnival of Monsters
• Sylvia Coleridge (Sonia) was Amelia Ducat in The Seeds of Doom
• Christopher [born Thomas] Coll (Goodwin here; Victor Pendlebury, 1982-1992) was Phipps in The Seeds of Death, and Stubbs in The Mutants
• Geoffrey Leesley (Cox here; Clegg, 2002) voiced Paramount Minister Mortund for Arrangements for War, and Harold for Audio- Go's The Broken Crown (2011)
• John Tordoff (Hill here; Hesketh, 1999) was Alec Leeson in Colony in Space (4)
• Daphne Heard (Lizzie) was Martha Tyler in Image of the Fendahl
• Angela Bruce (Janice) was Brigadier Winifred Bambera in Battlefield, a role reprised for Animal (2011), Seabird One, Visitants, The War Factory, Fractures (all 2022) and Knightfall (2026) - she also voiced Mother for The Persistence of Dreams (2018), Herb for Conversion (2019), and Oya/Andarta for Consequences (2021)
• [Edward Charles] Jimmy Gardner (Hargreaves) was Chenchu in Marco Polo, and Idmon in Underworld
• Alan [James] Bromly was also director of The Time Warrior and Nightmare of Eden
• Tristan de Vere Cole was director of The Wheel in Space too
• Matthew Robinson was also director of Resurrection of the Daleks and Attack of the Cybermen
• Darrol Blake was director of The Stones of Blood too
• John Black was also director of The Keeper of Traken, Four to Doomsday and K9 and Company
• director Roger Cheveley had been the production designer on The War Games