Want to own a bit of Coronation Street history? Well, Frisky the Coronation Street, is up for sale (though he has been dead for 10 years).

To be sold at auction on July 22nd, Frisky's ashes come in a sealed wooden casket with a brass plaque along with cremation certificate and postcards of the cat posing with various Weatherfield stars.

He's expected to fetch around £150, but who knows a real Corrie fan may pay much, much more for this (albeit) small slice of Coronation history.

Frisky was hired in 1990, beating stiff competition from 5,000 other cats to the role apparently. He famously starred in Coronation Street's opening sequence where he was seen crouching on the roof of Jack Duckworth's pigeon loft. He died in 2000 at the age of 14.

Chris Albury of Dominic Winter Auctions in Gloucestershire told The Metro newspaper: "It's certainly one of the quirkiest lots we have had for auction this year." He added: "We're not expecting an auction room dogfight but this will add some light relief to the day's proceedings."

Said John Rimington, Frisky's owner:
"Frisky was not only a much loved family pet but also captured the heart of the nation and made thousands of pounds for charities.

"We were very proud to be his owners and we are keen to keep his memory alive."

Via The Metro

ITV.com has one of their excellent "behind the scenes" videos today, showing how the spectacular fire scenes from last night's episodes were done. They took at least five weeks to plan, in close co-operation with the fire service and a team of expert special effects people. Every aspect of the fire was pre-planned so everyone knew exactly what would happen and when.

Wayne Bennett, the special effects co-ordinator, says that, as a job, it's not as much fun as it looks. "Up to and during it is very stressful," he says. "The only time you feel satisfaction is at the end. We do a lot of testing." Obviously safety is the over-riding issue. The smoke that filled Peter and Simon's flat looked very realistic but Wayne says it was organic and water-based so not at all harmful for the actors. The smoke used for the exterior shots was more toxic but wasn't near enough to anyone to get into their lungs.

It was a particular concern that young Alex Bain, who was heavily involved in the scenes, wouldn't get hurt or frightened. "He was quite nervous when we brought the fire onto the set," Wayne says, "but we showed him how safe it is." He says that Alex kept them all amused while they were working, but we could see from the episode last night that, as soon as the cameras roll, Alex is as professional as everybody else, and it all made for some really spectacular viewing.

The comedy series Beautiful People has been recommissioned for a second series for BBC 2. The musical comedy stars Olivia Coleman, Meera Syal, Luke Ward-Wilkinson and Layton Williams, and the new series will again be written by one of Corrie's best writers, Jonathan Harvey. He says, "I am thrilled that the BBC has faith in a show which struck a chord with so many. I can't wait to get back to spending time with a group of such lovable characters again."

TV Scoop's review of the first series said, "it will certainly warm the cockles of your heart (whatever they may be) and that's the sort of comedy I love."

Filming starts later this year.

Sir Ben Kingsley, whom we profiled here, had a brief appearance in Coronation Street in 1966. Since then, of course, he's gone on to become a world famous actor and was knighted in 2001.

But he's never forgotten the thrill of working on Coronation Street. He says it was "almost like live TV or theatre. We had huge cameras with great thick tapes, and we ran from one part of the studio to the other to keep the tapes rolling. Quite marvellous. Very exciting."

He says he wouldn't mind dropping into the Rovers for a pint one day. "I have very fond memories. I think a long-running soap is a very interesting way of looking at the social history of a time and a place. It was a marvellous show."

I absolutely love the behind-the-scenes videos that they get on ITV.com. There's one today showing exactly how Maria's attempt at running Tony Gordon over was filmed.

First Assistant Director Dayle Evans-Kar says, "We can't injure our star turns so I suggested we enlisted the services of a stunt co-ordinator, who brought in a stunt double for Maria and a stunt double for Tony." We've already heard that the sequence was filmed in front of a green screen, and Dayle Evans-Kar explains that it's because of the scale of the Corrie set. "The reason we're using a green screen is that our Street is only three-quarter size, so the road isn't wide enough and the houses aren't big enough. So we're going to shoot all around it, do our travelling shots, then we're going to put green screen in the background so the graphics can make it look like the car's going fast. So it's all a trick. It's quite a complicated sequence...

Coronation Street scriptwriter Mark Wadlow says that he'll take any opportunity to put his home town of Middlesbrough on the map. "If I can get a sneaky reference into anything that reminds people of Middlesbrough's existence, I will," he says, and he did just that recently when Eddie Windass mentioned playing darts at the Ironopolis Social Club in Middlesbrough.

Wadlow, who is 46, left the town when he was 19 to go to Leeds University, but he says, "I can always wander around feeling as though I've come home, no matter how long I'm away." He now lives in Shropshire but visits his mum in Middlesbrough regularly.

Apparently the Corrie reference to the Ironopolis Club has gone down very well with the club's regulars. Mark Wadlow said, "I didn't see how I could do a darts story without mentioning the Ironopolis. It was the centre of the darts universe."

Photo: Gazettelive.co.uk

The rivalry between David Platt and Gary Windass comes to a violent head this Friday, when they get into a fist fight that leaves David covered in blood. Mikey North (Gary) and Jack P Shepherd (David) pop up in a video interview on ITV.com today to talk about the scenes. You can also see them rehearsing with the fight director.

The fight director, Richard Hammett, describes how he prepared the actors. "A lot depends on the actors really," he says. "They're young lads so they're always eager. Both of these guys are good, so what we did was work out a routine, block it and just work through it till we've got it really well set up." The key, apparently...

Tonight we'll see Molly Compton and Tyrone Dobbs finally getting married, and one person who'll have a special interest in the wedding scenes is James Steward. He's the man who designed and hand-made the dress that Molly will be wearing. He says, "I'm really excited. I just hope there's a good view of it. It's also a bit scary because there's going to be 13 million people judging it." The designer, who is based in Leeds, had to take into account that Vicky Binns, who plays Molly, would be wearing the dress for two weeks during filming rather than just for one day as is usual for brides. James Steward has designed clothes for Victoria Beckham and Tara Palmer-Tompkinson, and made red carpet dresses for occasions such as the National Television Awards

See more on his website and MySpace page

What a relief - it wasn't Liam who got hit by that car on Friday after all! It was actually stunt man Will Willobough, and you can watch amazing behind-the-scenes footage of the stunt on ITV.com.

Assistant Director John Folkard explains that the street the stunt was filmed in was specially built, and the scene was filmed at 2am to avoid any prying eyes and camera lenses. The stunt is described as "high category" danger-wise, and safety was the paramount concern...

Digital Spy has a great interview with Kim Crowther in which she drops all sorts of brilliant-sounding snippets, such as...

- The repercussions of the Liam murder storyline are set to go on for "much longer than you'd expect."

- There are lots of plans for Carla when Alison King returns from her maternity leave. It's possible that her brother (who is in prison now) may turn up at some point though nothing has been firmly decided about that.

- A big story is coming up for Eileen, and we're going to be meeting her dad. This will connect her in some way with Rita and Julie (I'm guessing a romance with Rita).

- Big things are planned for Becky, who is going to be "massive" next year.

- Kim doesn't think there are any particular holes that need filling cast-wise, but if she had a wish-list she'd love to see Hilda Ogden, Karen McDonald, Shelley Unwin and Tracy Barlow all back in the Street. There are no plans currently to bring back Bradley Walsh.

It's nice to know that, while some people are thinking of Coronation Street as an extended advertisement for a range of merchandise, others have its long-term future and integrity in mind. And none more so than the current producer, Kim Crowther, who has been saying all the right things to the MEN's Ian Wylie.

"I'd like to get back to what I think is great about the show," she says. "In this small street, all sorts of life happens behind those doors and those characters that we know and love, they go through everything together. So I'm kind of old school in that. I'm not out to change the show, to make my mark. I am out to take it back to what I think we do really well, which is some great drama and some great comedy, with some brilliant characters."

Hurrah for that. She sounds like one of us when she says, "Obviously you always need big dramatic stories, but you need to balance that with what we do so well, which is a lot of comedy with the great characters that we have. And I just didn't think we were seeing enough variety of the regular characters we've got on screen. So that was a big agenda of mine, to make sure we didn't just focus on too few character groups and too few stories. So I wanted to see more faces on screen that we know and love."

See also: Could the Mortons come back next year?

Last night's episode was the first (as far as I can recall) to be written by David Bowker, and it was a pretty good one, too.

So who is David Bowker? Well, he's had several novels published, including From Stockport With Love, which may be turned into a film as soon as they find a suitable lead actor for it. He's also worked as a journalist and has scripted an episode of Casualty. He was voted 'Manchester Writer of the Year' (not sure which year) by City Life magazine. I'm looking forward to future Corrie scripts by him, and have put his novel Rawhead in Love into my Amazon basket because it looks interesting, to say the least!

A new movie version of Evelyn Waugh's book Brideshead Revisited has just hit cinema screens. A lot of people will remember the TV version which originally aired in 1981. It's about the life and loves of a beautiful, rich family who live in their ancestral home of Brideshead (which is "played" by Castle Howard in Yorkshire in both the TV series and the film).

The director of the new film is Julian Jarrold - and he started his career directing promotional videos before getting a job directing Coronation Street three times a week. He says, "It was very daunting for a young director to do Coronation Street for the first time. They were very powerful characters and could eat you for breakfast!"

I was really excited to find this. One of my first posts on Corrieblog was about Richard Beckinsale, the talented actor who starred in Rising Damp and Porridge and who sadly died when he was only 31. He had a brief appearance in Coronation Street in 1969, playing a policeman who arrested Ena Sharples. Some lovely person has put the clip on YouTube, and you can watch it here. Ena isn't the only person wearing a hairnet in this clip - Beckinsale had to wear a hairnet to hide his long hair under the helmet!

I'm a huge fan of Jonathan Harvey's writing for Coronation Street - he's got that ear for the comic and absurd in the things people say every day that is the hallmark of Corrie at its best.

So I'm looking forward to Beautiful People, the new six part comedy series he's written, which will be screened on BBC2 next month. It's based on the memoirs of Simon Doonan, Creative Director of Barneys, New York. 24 year-old Simon, window dresser in one of New York's swankiest stores, thinks about his childhood in Reading, when he yearned to be fabulous and to be surrounded by beautiful people. He spent his time learning dance routines, idolising the Spice Girls and hanging around with his friend Kyle - or Kylie, as he prefers to be called.

With people like Olivia Coleman and Meera Syal in the cast, it's going to be good.

Personally I would love to be a Coronation Street scriptwriter, but it's about as likely as me receiving a call from Damon Albarn inviting me to join his band.

One person who always dreamed of writing for Corrie and now actually does it is Lucy Gannon. She told Ian Wylie that, as an exiled northermer, she always felt a bond with the show. "When my mum died and my father re-married, one of the family rules was, 'You're not allowed to watch Coronation Street,'" she says. "We moved down from Lancashire to Wiltshire and my dad felt that if we saw northern accents and people with tomato sauce on the table, we'd be homesick."

When Lucy became a professional writer, she always kept in the back of her mind that she'd love to write for Corrie, and this year she joined the writing team. "I love it," she says. "I like my own company so I find the meetings quite difficult, but I love the writing."

Lucy's CV includes Peak Practice and Soldier, Soldier and the brilliant 1996 drama Trip Trap, which dealt with domestic abuse.

Read more about Corrie's unsung heroes

Nina Mandel is the sort of woman who would drive a flash car. A topless Jaguar XJS, most probably. At least, that's what Coronation Street bosses thought when they contacted Norman Hicks, who runs the Jaguar Enthusiasts' Club. He had exactly the car that they needed for scenes where Nina drives to the Street to see Dev.

Mr Hicks was only too happy to help, even though it meant driving a 500 mile round trip to get there. But it wasn't just the car that made it to the screen. Harvey Virdi, who plays Nina, can't drive, so Norman Hicks was asked to put on a pink top, headscarf and sunglasses and act as Nina's body double for the driving scenes. "I never imagined I would be dressing up as a woman, particularly a Bollywood star, when I was driving to the studio that day," he says. "She had to sit in the car for scenes where she chatted up Dev - thankfully I wasn't needed on set for those - that really would have been a giveaway."

Coronation Street scriptwriter Jonathan Harvey (praised be his name) will be giving a talk at Liverpool's Everyman Theatre next week, as part of the Everyword festival. He will lead a Q&A session, "From the Box to the Boards," about writing for the stage and screen, on 23 July at 5pm. For more information, click here or call the Everyman Theatre on 0151 709 4776.

Also look out for a forthcoming BBC2 comedy series, Beautiful People, written by Jonathan Harvey and starring Meera Syal and Olivia Colman.

Photo: MEN

The other day, I found myself hoping that David Platt's cellmate Graeme would pay the Platts a visit once he's served his time for arson and chucking a sausage roll (I think that's what Tina told Gail he'd done but I may be confused). He's only been in a couple of scenes, but I really like his odd sense of humour. On the other hand, you could argue that a village only needs one idiot and we already have Kirk.

But which other bit-part characters would you like to see as regular Coronation Street cast members? There have been other characters who've been around just to serve a particular plot and then disappeared. People like Rosie's school friend Lee, or George and Ivor (Doreen, for that matter, who was semi-permanent but then disappeared). Emily's niece Freda is often mentioned as someone who has occasionally appeared that people would like to see more of, as is Yana Lumb. With Julie Hesmondhalgh returning, perhaps we'll get to see more of Hayley's son, Christian.

You must have loads of other ideas of characters who deserved a bit more screen time than they got - click the comments link to add to the list!

Have a browse through our Unsung Heroes category which features a lot of characters who've passed through Weatherfield.

Outgoing producer Steve Frost gives an interesting and thoughtful video interview on ITV.com today, talking about his time at the helm, his favourite characters and storylines, and why he wanted to flood the Street!

"My initial thoughts on taking the job were mostly fear," he admits. "Complete terror that this is such a huge and cherished part of British TV, that nobody controls the show and that the viewers own it and if you mess it up you'd probably be torn to shreds I think."

His favourite word seems to be "evolve," and what he's enjoyed most is seeing characters evolve. "I think I've most enjoyed working on storylines which have seen great characters evolve and develop," he says. "Tracy killing Charlie was a fantastic storyline and a very fun moment, something we all enjoyed doing. But in a way it saw the end of two characters, Tracy and Charlie, who'd been fantastic characters, so what's enjoyable for me... .

While DC Ruth-Fowler-from-Eastenders is working on the Platt-pushing case, a uniformed police officer is getting on with investigating the Valandro's fire.

She's played by Claire Bleasdale, who has popped up in Coronation Street regularly since 2005, always in a police role. You might remember her investigating Stacy (aka Orchid), the con artist who swindled Fred Elliott. She was also the officer that Bev talked to when she reported Charlie Stubbs for abusing Shelley (she was credited as PC Burns in that one, though she usually appears in the credits as "police officer"), and she was in the episode where Kelly's stolen bag had been recovered by the police - during the course of which Kelly first ran into her old acquaintance Becky Grainger.

Claire trained at Manchester Metropolitan School of Theatre. She's also appeared in At Home with the Braithwaites on TV, and is a workshop leader and teacher, and an associate artist for The Lowry and National Youth Theatre. She is member of LeKoa, a theatre collaborative committed to writing and producing new plays.

Not so long ago, I did a Monday Moan about a scene on Corrie that upset quite a few people - a dialogue between the Masons that revolved around a pair of white stiletto shoes and was a bit tacky and tasteless. Soon after that, I was tut-tutting again about Kevin and Tyrone saying Claire had "a right little motor on her," which just sounded wrong coming from the mouth of Kevin Webster. The writer of both these episodes was Simon Crowther, and comments on both those blogs called for him to be sacked.

As he's the husband of new producer Kim Crowther, I don't expect she'll be hurrying to sack him. And I don't think she should, either, because I actually think that when Simon Crowther gets an episode right, he gets it bang-on. The first of last Friday's episodes, for example, was stuffed full of funny lines - Steve trying (and failing) to impress Nick with his knowledge of Cornwall was the kind of funny little scene that Simon Gregson plays so well. Similarly Vernon cautioning Michelle last week about the perils of Ryan going swimming, an episode which prompted a Corrieblogger to comment, "Writer Simon Crowther is the king of non-sequiturs. More please."

Neil Marland has spent the past 30 years working as a stills photographer at Granada, and has captured some important Coronation Street moments.

Neil retires this month, and the Manchester Evening News has an interview with him, and a gallery of some of his stunning images, such as Gail and her kids, soaking wet, after surviving Richard Hillman's attempt to drown them, and more recently the birth of Violet's baby at the Rovers.

Neil gives a great insight into a scene that must be one of the most memorable in Corrie history, the scene where Hilda Ogden looks through her husband Stan's belongings after his death. "It was very emotional," he says. "Everyone was sobbing. But as I approached, Jean [Alexander, who played Hilda] sat bolt upright and said, `What picture do you want Neil? I'm only acting.'"

As well as photographing all the Coronation Street greats, Neil also captured the visits of the Queen and Tony Blair to the cobbles, and he's worked on plenty of other shows too. He says of his job, "I wouldn't change it for anything. I never felt that I could better the job, working with a company that's produced such fantastic programmes."

I watch loads of these ITV.com video interviews with Corrie cast members, but I've hardly ever enjoyed one as much as today's with Helen Worth, who plays Gail Platt. She's absolutely lovely - giggly, doesn't take herself at all seriously and obviously loves the job she does.

Trying to explain the Tina abortion storyline she admits, "I didn't quite understand that storyline, but I have to do it. I suppose Gail wanted Tina to have an abortion because she was worried about them being so young, wasn't she? That's the conclusion I came to anyway. And of course David finds out, and the culmination of that is pretty daunting, to say the least."

She laughs (she has a great laugh), "Why would you think David could cope with a baby? He's not stable, is he? You couldn't call David stable could you? I think any mother would worry about David having a baby. He's just too young, and he's been through a lot of trouble, you know."

So why does Gail fall down the stairs?

Eastenders (it's another soap, apparently) recently gave over an entire half hour episode to a monologue: one woman speaking into a tape recorder, recording a message for her husband in hospital. The Mirror's Jim Shelley said the episode was "as powerful and poignant a piece of drama as you will see on TV all year, and destined to be showered with prizes."

The character delivering the monologue was Dot Cotton, and the actress who played her was June Brown. And, back in 1970, June Brown appeared in Coronation Street. In 1970 she played "Mrs Parsons" for three episodes. Mrs Parsons was the mother of Tony Parsons (no, not the writer, do keep up), a musically gifted boy whom Ena Sharples took under her wing.

June Brown was born in 1927 and has had a varied career in television, stage and film acting. She joined Eastenders in 1985, and in the 31 January episode became the first and so far only actress to carry an entire episode single handed in the history of British soap. You can watch part of the episode here.

More Corrie cameos and unsung heroes