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Monday 27 June 2011

My take on Coronation Street's Stella Price

I thought I’d wade in with all this controversy over Stella Price’s/Michelle Collins’ accent. Personally, I don’t think it’s that bad. Yes it could do with a bit of work but at least she’s made the effort to change her voice. Her character shows a lot of promise and seems to be one of the feisty females Corrie is so good at.

Personally, I think part of the problem is the high expectations on Michelle Collins. She’s such a well known actress that people already have opinions and impressions of her. If they haven’t liked her in other programmes, chances are they won’t like her in Coronation Street. I’m not saying that’s everyone’s opinion but if you already don’t rate her as an actress, chances are her appearing on Corrie won’t change your mind. Michelle is a great actress in my opinion, but she does have a lot of pressure on herself at the moment.

Also, as one of the commentators on Jane’s post pointed out, Stella has been the centre of attention and hasn’t had much time to settle in. Whereas her boyfriend and daughter are away from the limelight they’re having more time to be introduced. If the writers were to ease Stella in slower, I think we’d warm to her more.

A perfect example is Becky (Katherine Kelly) I think I’m right in thinking she wasn’t meant to be in the show permanently. Although she did have some hectic scenes early on, she was eased in gradually after that and we got used to the character. The rest as they say is history.

Furthermore, most of us have would never have heard of Katherine Kelly before she joined the show. Therefore none of us had any expectations or judgements already made of her. We just analysed what she did in front of us and didn’t compare her to anyone. Obviously casting an unknown actress or actor doesn’t always work out, but perhaps Corrie might have been best in doing so for this character. Or as I said, building her character up slowly...

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Or we could just stop talking about it and maybe revisit this topic in six months, I'm getting seriously bored of this. She's been in the show for a week!

Tvor said...

I agree Rebecca. There must be an enormous pressure on Ms. Collins and I think she's doing quite well, accent and all.

Glenda Young said...

Great blog post, Rebecca, I agree too.

scifiaddict86 said...

Maybe this because I'm Canadian but I really don't don't see why the accent is such a big deal. Plenty of real people have accents(Christian Bale slides all over the UK in a single sentence) that are a mix of locales for all we know Stella spent ten years in London growing up. It doesn't make her any less of good character or automatically make Michelle Collins less of an actress. Its not like shes the only character with the wrong accent hell the only Barlow with the right accent is Deirdre(Ken's to far south, Peter's sounds like he's never even been to Scotland and Tracy's too posh to have grown up in the street) .Personally I think this is more about the rivalry with Eastenders and the fact Michele Collin's used to work for the enemy than anything else.

Tracy said...

I find it funny that most of the new people come in are hated. Oh they can't act their way out of a paper bag. Then when they leave everbody get all sad about it. Oh she/he was the greatest thing since(insert iconic character here). Being that I live in Canada I don't know if her accent is crap or not. I would think that if the people who make Corrie didn't like it they would change her characters backstory. People who bitch and moan about things like this might want to take up acting. Get themselves on Corrie and show us how it's done.

Anonymous said...

I really cannot make my mind up. Being from the north myself not that far away from Manchester I think that the accent is okay.I do however find it distracting. The thing is, it is a very broad accent that she has adopted. Broader than any other character on the street. To be honest it takes me back to Ena Sharples and Elsie Tanner. I think that the main problem is, she was Cindy Beale for so long that her dramatic accent change is taking a lot of getting used to. I really think that we need to give her character another 6 weeks and if we are still commenting on the accent then, then yes there is a problem. I love her character but the accent is very distracting at the moment.

bbhilda said...

I don't know why they didn't just allow the character to have a Southern accent, it worked for the Baldwins. She still could have been a landlady in Northern pubs for many years, and it would be normal for her daughter to have a Northern accent if she grew up there. After all, my grown up children have strong Canadian accents even though it is still quite obvious that I am from the UK. People travel around more than ever these days, so you hear all kinds of accents everywhere you go. Michelle hasn't been Cindy for more than 15 years and has done lots since, time to give her a break I think!

Glenda Young said...

As a Northerner, it's clear to me that her accent is wobbly and fake, but I don't care a jot. We'll get used to it and she'll get better at it. Michelle Collins is a fab actress adn as I never watch EastEnders, she was never Cindy Beale to me, so I don't have a problem with her at all. I'm very much enjoying Stella Price but rather think Karl might turn out to be the more interesting one in the long run, he's got that sort of face and voice that typical Corrie blokes need!

Frosty the Snowman said...

How many times can we talk about Stella and her accent - enough already! There are plenty of other people to blog about, Stella has been in it two weeks - why the obsession?? We are all talked out about this character, let's leave it for a bit until she settles in more PLEASE!!

Anonymous said...

Who is Rebecca?

Anonymous said...

I think the main problem is that she's a terrible actress.

Even with Katherine Kelly I was never this wound up about a new character. Bad accent or not.

Phil's picked a lemon here.

Anonymous said...

Hmm think the story line is going dowm the tubes and "Stella" just is not plausable enough. The whole story feels wrong and its wierd to see so many people behind the tiny bar too - no, no, its just not working. Cant put my finger on it, and dont think time will change anything.

Anonymous said...

NAY and I repeat NAY as I hate watching her. she cannot act and she always seems to steal the soap which to me, is not right. I totally agree with the main write-up about Becky whoever wrote it. Please, hurry up and get our out of Corrie as her time is up. Actually I cannot watch Romanian Holiday DVD anymore as she has spoilt her character on the weekly soaps.

GRITTY SAGAS BY CORRIE BLOG EDITOR GLENDA YOUNG, PUBLISHED BY HEADLINE. CLICK PIC BELOW!

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