Death on the Street

Death on the Street was a half-hour documentary broadcast under the This England banner which opened the 1979 series of the programme when it was broadcast on Tuesday 24th July of that year at 7.30pm. This England was a programme that examined social or cultural matters and as it was made by Granada Television it had a strong bias towards the north of England.

Death on the Street examined the impact on viewers of the death of long-running characters in Coronation Street after they had spent several years watching their storylines and had become acutely familiar with them, even though they were entirely fictional.

The main focus of the edition was the death of Ernest Bishop in January 1978 and the programme was presented by Stephen Hancock who had played the part for nine years. Several "real life" moments from 1977/1978 were re-enacted for the programme, such as Coronation Street producer Bill Podmore and writer John Stevenson discussing the way in which the death would be handled, with Podmore saying he didn’t like "cops and robbers" in the street and Stevenson saying he felt they should concentrate on Ernie and not the villains. In reality, such a discussion would have taken place in one of the regular three-weekly storylining conferences with all the writing staff present. Also re-enacted was the sight of several viewers watching Episode 1772 (9th January 1978) and the Granada Television duty officer, Mr Lewis taking a call from a Mrs Dorothy Robinson of Rotherham complaining about the violent act and mirroring Podmore by saying it was better being in a “cops and robbers” programme. Two other women were also interviewed, one saying that she felt sorry for the two killers as they only wanted to make a bit of money!

Hancock was shown at his home in Stratford-upon-Avon playing an arrangement of Eric Spear's theme with his two musically-talented daughters, Gemma and Pippa. His wife Jocelyne remembered how upset he had been the week before he died on screen, and how one of his daughters found it harrowing to watch, especially the hospital scenes in Episode 1773 (11th January 1978).

Noel Dyson was interviewed on the Grape Street set, saying she had wept buckets when she watched her own character's funeral episode and how, in an example as to how viewers confused fiction with reality, some office workers on a bus she was once travelling on gossiped with each other about Ken Barlow’s affair with Marian Lund, saying "shush, she doesn’t known yet!" Lynne Carol was interviewed in a Manchester pub, saying she had been asked for an autograph that very morning by a women who recognised her from her death fourteen years before, but thinking it was only four, and another who said “how long have you been dead now”? earning her an acerbic reply from Miss Carol. Clips were shown from Episode 357 (13th May 1964) showing Martha Longhurst's death where Jack Walker, Annie Walker and Len Fairclough discover her body in the snug and the three-car cortege winding its way through the Weatherfield streets from Episode 359 (20th May 1964).

Stephen Hancock was shown rehearsing for an unidentified Scottish Television programme in Glasgow (possibly cancelled by the 1979 ITV strike) in which he played a pianist in a 1940s dance band alongside Ronald Fraser, Aimi McDonald, Una McLean and Alex Norton while back south of the border he was shown joining some men for a drink in the Priory Arms pub and talking to various women on Salford market with some of them saying to his face that his character should have been killed off a long time ago, another saying it was a shame he had to die and one asking if he was coming back! Actor Tony McHale who had played Dave Lester, one of Ernie's killers, was interviewed on the Grape Street set about the reaction he got from the public after the shooting. Finally the aforementioned Dorothy Robinson and her friends were also shown on the Grape Street set when Hancock surprised them when he opened the door of No.3 and came out to greet them.

Mike Thomson, Mike Blakeley, Steve Haskett and Brian Spencer were the cameramen on the programme while Harry Brookes, Malcolm Davies and Chris Moore were soundmen. Barbara McDonald was the researcher and the edition was produced and directed by long-term documentary maker Norman Swallow. The programme failed to chart in the top twenty viewing figures.