Doctor Who Vs. Coronation Street @ 65, Part 5: 1970-1972

Sladen played barmaid Anita
Reynolds in six instalments
at New Year 1970.

Corrie ended its first decade with the broad-
cast of its first colour episode (in November
1969) and a brand new title sequence. As
the soap approached its tenth anniversary
and thousandth episode, it was hit by strike
action at Granada which kept the show off the

air for most of June 1970. ITV's Colour Strike

later in the year meant that the drama was

recorded in monochrome again from November

1970 to February 1971.
The troubled early Seventies therefore

 resulted in the first major ratings slump since

 the programme's formative years.

These three years on the cobbles featured
Elizabeth Sladen (in her first credited TV

role), and a total of twenty-three Doctor Who

cast and crew connections:

• prolific BAFTA winning writer [James] Brian Finch penned 150 episodes of Coronation Street, and provided an ultimately unused script for season 23 - Leviathan was adapted by Big Finish in 2010
• Paul Bernard was also director of Day of the Daleks, The Time Monster and Frontier in Space
• Ian Barritt (Policeman here; Forshaw, 1973) was Professor Peach in The Unicorn and the Wasp
• Rosalind Ayres (Jasmine) voiced Miriam Rochester for Jubilee (2003)
• June [Muriel] Brown (Mrs. Parsons) and Ray [Harold] Dunbobbin (Clarke) both starred in The Time Warrior, as Lady Eleanor and Irongron's Soldier, whilst Brown's EastEnders character (Dot Cotton) appeard in Dimensions in Time
• Maggie Steed [nee Baker] (Ellen) voiced Rana Zandusia for Mission to Magnus (2009)
• Richard [Leslie Mitford] Steele (DS Jones) was Commandant Gorton in (episode 2 of) The War Games, Sergeant Hart in The Silurians, and Guard in The Mark of the Rani
• William [Thomas Clucas] Lucas (Maxwell here; Judge Parrish, 1996) was Range in Frontios
• [John] Talfryn Thomas (Dirty Dick) was Mullins in Spearhead from Space (1) and Dave in The Green Death
• Gareth Thomas (Ryan) voiced Lord Tamworth for Storm Warning (2001), Kalendorf for Dalek Empire and Return of the Daleks (2006), and Astaroth Morax for Last of the Colophon (2014)
• Luan Peters [born Carol Ann Hirsch] (Lorna) was Chicki [as Karol Keyes] in The Macra Terror (4), and Sheila in Frontier in Space (3)
• George [Michael William] Layton (Shelton) was Technician Penn in The Space Pirates, and voiced Stefan Lehne for Unto the Breach (2014), Louis Markell for The Havoc of Empires (2015), and Regis Tel for The Quest of the Engineer (2020) - he also played the Doctor in the unaired French and Saunders spoof, The Silurian Disruption, in 1987
• Del Henney (Duncan) was Colonel [Patrick] Archer in Resurrection of the Daleks
• John [Wilson] Stratton (Crabtree) was Shockeye of the Quawncing Grig in The Two Doctors
• [Clifford] William [Cumberbatch] Simons (Bates) was Mandrel in The Sun Makers
• Ivor Roberts (Silcock) was Mogran in Genesis of the Daleks (3)
• Brian Glover (Henshaw) was [Charles] Griffiths in Attack of the Cybermen
• Jeremy Young (Lewis) was Kal in 100,000 BC, and Gordon Lowery in Mission to the Unknown
• Alec Sabin (Lomax) was Ringway in Earthshock
• Paul [Mackriell] Copley (Photographer here; Priestley, 2007) was Clem McDonald in Torchwood: Children of Earth, and voiced Dad for Spare Parts (2002/2017), Jimmy Deel for Big Dig (2013), Mick Huff for The Miniaturist (2022), and Wendell for The Conservitors (2023)
• Robert Keegan (Jacko) was Sholakh in The Ribos Operation
• Thelma Barlow [nee Pigott] (Mavis Wilton/Riley, 1971-1997) was Lady Thaw in The Lazarus Experiment