Sneak Preview - Baldwin Family Album

In tonight's Corrie Family Album, it looks like Mike's demonstrating to grandson Jamie the quality that makes the Baldwin men so special. Seriously though, those Baldwins really are an incorrigible lot: the shady dealing head of the cockney clan Mike has been married four times and his list of conquests include Bet Lynch, Deirdre Barlow and, it now transpires, his own brother’s wife! And his (newly proclaimed) son Danny isn’t much better having bedded his own son’s girlfriend Leanne – giving the phrase ‘keep it in the family’ a whole new meaning! Coronation Street Family Albums takes a look at the eventful and often complicated lives of The Baldwin family during the last three decades of Coronation Street, from the business affairs and family affairs where the men do their own little bit of overtime, to one of the most tragic losses the Street has ever seen with the death of Alma. And throughout it all, there’s always been a bottle of scotch at hand for the King of Knickers to drown his sorrows in.

Narrated by Matthew Kelly, the show features interviews with Johnny Briggs (Mike Baldwin) and cast members past and present, and re-lives the highs and lows in Mike and his extended family’s lives. We learn that it hasn’t always been Mike having affairs on the side: when he was reunited with his son Mark Baldwin, full of hope that he would take over the family business at Underworlds, little did Mike know that Mark would later bed his gold-digging two-faced fiancée Linda Sykes.

As the biggest wedding bash that Weatherfield would ever see got underway in 2000, Best Man Mark got drunk and spilled the beans on his affair with Linda, but Mike chose to believe Linda’s version of events and banished his son from the Baldwin empire.

2001 revealed that in addition to Mark, Mike had another son from his marriage to Ken’s daughter Susan Barlow. Although Susan had always maintained she’d had an abortion, Mike discovered that for many years another son, Adam, had been growing up in Scotland.

The year also saw Mike’s ex-wife Alma receiving the devastating news that she had terminal cancer. Alma had been the third Mrs Baldwin and without doubt, the most popular. Having refused traumatic radiotherapy treatments, Alma was supported by best friend Audrey and her ex Mike, with not a dry eye in the house as she died with her friends around her.

For the last 30 years, Mike has always had arch enemy Ken Barlow in the shadows. Although a peace of sorts has now been reached, it hasn’t always been the case. The antipathy between the two Street stalwarts came to a head in 1982 during Deirdre’s affair with Mike. But when Mike offered to take Deirdre away from her life of drudgery with Ken, she decided to stay with Ken and ride out the storm in front of 21 million viewers. Ken had won this battle against Mike, but the war between them was far from over and their feuding continued.

And the one thing that’s remained constant in Mike Baldwin’s life has been his beloved factory Underworlds, and we’re reminded that a lot more than knicker making goes on there in the form of fires, fornication, fighting and firing the staff. For many fans though, the factory would be an ideal place to work as Johnny Briggs reveals that people write to him asking for jobs as machinists and managers!

Coronation Street Family Albums: The Baldwins features contributions from Johnny Briggs (Mike Baldwin), Debra Stephenson (Frankie Baldwin), Bradley Walsh (Danny Baldwin), Rupert Hill (Jamie Baldwin), Sam Robertson (Adam Baldwin), Sue Nicholls (Audrey Roberts), Amanda Barrie (Alma Baldwin), Jacqueline Chadwick nee Pirie (Linda Baldwin), Jane Danson (Leanne Battersby), Danny Young (Warren Baldwin), William Roache (Ken Barlow) and Pauline Fleming (Penny King).