Humour in Coronation Street

Humour has featured strongly in Coronation Street since the programme's inception on 9 December 1960 airing on British Television. Reflecting on Coronation Street's survival for over five decades, former archivist and scriptwriter Daran Little suggests that most observers attribute the show's success to "two aspects: the mixture of comedy and drama, and the strength of the female characters."

While most Coronation Street characters are used in a comedic capacity at some time or other, a number of characters have been used specifically for comedy throughout the show's history.

The notoriously prissy, reserved and plain spinster Mavis Riley (Thelma Barlow) had long-running humorous storylines involving her love life. At one stage, two suitors threw themselves at her, but she could not make up her mind between them. When she finally decided to pick one, she ended up being named as the "other woman" in a divorce case. At her first attempt to marry Derek Wilton, both failed to turn up at the church.

After their marriage, husband Derek proved a comic foil to dithering Mavis. Derek was offered a company car by his new stationery-manufacturing company, but it turned out to be a lime green car with a large plastic paper clip on top.

Mavis and Derek's garden was filled with kitsch decorations, only to have someone "kidnap" their garden gnome and send letters demanding payment of a ransom. They then received photographs of their kidnapped gnome photographed at several famous world monuments.

The character of Mavis has frequently been parodied in popular culture (particularly by comedian Les Dennis) for her catchphrase "Oooh, I don't really know".

Reg Holdsworth was a comic creation who made his Street debut in 1989. The character was rapidly balding and tried to look more virile by getting an appalling toupée, which he thought would "draw the ladies". This backfired when Reg was accused of being a flasher (Reg's toupee made him look suspiciously like the real culprit).

In 2002, one storyline involved the notoriously homophobic loudmouth Les Battersby (Bruce Jones) – whose wife has left him – taking in a male lodger, only to be informed by the local Council that in taking in a lodger he has broken his tenancy agreement and would have to move. To hold on, he and his teenage lodger chose to pose as a gay couple, filling the house with the contents they imagined a gay couple's home might include. His estranged wife Janice (Vicky Entwistle), worried that he might lose his house, returns to pose as his happily married wife. She walks in on a house turned into a shrine to Judy Garland and Liberace, to be asked by the Council official "was it when your husband 'came out' that the marriage broke up?" She blew her husband's totally unconvincing scam by erupting into laughter. "Les. Gay? LES? Les is not gay. Les?"

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Wikipedia