Thursday 31 August 2017

Video: Pat Phoenix's Final Television Appearance

(This post was originally posted by Flaming Nora on the Coronation Street Blog July 2017, reposted to this blog with permission.)


With thanks to @CuriousUKTelly on Twitter for this little gem.

From their blog, with thanks

"Every now and then, an actor or actress strides onto a television show and, backed by quite magnificent writing, manages to not only define the series, but often a genre. And this is never more evident than with Pat Phoenix who played - as we all know - Elsie Tanner way back in the very first episode of Coronation Street.

The original soap siren, Elsie Tanner was fiery, passionate and it was the combination of these two traits which led to achilles heel: a series of doomed relationships with the many men to tread the cobbles of Coronation Street. Away from her romantic dalliances, though, Tanner was a warm hearted and maternal soul which was demonstrated most acutely in the late 1970s as she took Suzie Birchall and Gail Potter (later Platt) under her wing.

Making her final appearance in Coronation Street in 1984, Pat Phoenix left behind a brashy, honest, incredibly Northern and soulful legacy which has yet to be matched in British soaps and, given the dire state of that genre in the modern age, it's unlikely we'll ever see such a performance again. Sadly, just less than three years later, Pat Phoenix had died following a battle with lung cancer.

Several weeks after her untimely death - Phoenix was only 62 - the final chapter in her acting career aired in the form of Hidden Talents, an episode from the anthology series Unnatural Causes which, ironically, had death at the very centre of its narrative."

You can watch Hidden Talents, below, and I would recommend that you read the full blog at UK Curious Television too, for more insider info too.








Tvor @tvordlj on Twitter

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