Monday 1 September 2014

1982: Albert Tatlock, MBE!

 31/12/1982 - and Jack Howarth gets the MBE! Richly deserved - cloth-capped grumpy old Albert was such a favourite - something between a lovable garden gnome and a troll sitting in the Rovers Snug. The award was for Jack Howarth's tireless charity work. "Off screen he is a cheerful, energetic man" says this front page article from the Sun newspaper. 

We love Albert! "Love?" you ask. "But he died years ago! Wouldn't loved be a more appropriate word?" No, because, despite the fact that both Albert and Mr Howarth died in 1984, whenever we watch old episodes of the Street, Albert lives again - and we enjoy Mr Howarth's performances just as much as we did when they were originally broadcast. Albert Tatlock is definitely one of the immortal characters of the Street.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for this article reminiscing about the wonderful Albert Tatlock played by Jack Howarth. As for as I'm concerned, Coronation St started to fade when Mr Tatlock passed away at daughter Beattie's house in 1984. I haven't watched it religiously as you might say since the Rita Alan Bradley business.

Back On The Street said...

Albert was wonderful! The Alan/Rita storyline was pretty daft in our opinion. Rita said she'd basically gone to him in a flood of tears to try and get him back at one point to Bet - she would NEVER have done that - and became a different woman, suddenly a victim of the mythical 'Patriarchy'. It was an ideology, not character-led storyline. Rita's horror and tears when Alan thumped somebody in the Rovers ('Just like Len!') was ridiculous too. Back in the '70s she'd thumped Len and knocked him from his barstool! We still loved Reet, but the character lost a lot of its truth and grit through adherence to a trendy storyline, hugely influenced by feminism in the late 1980s. Wrong character, wrong story.