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Coronation Street: a no-go area for the cross?

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William Crawley | 10:51 UK time, Thursday, 15 January 2009

church_exterior_2.jpgWe're back into the culture war of giving and taking offence. Coronation Street producers rented a Church of England parish church to film a wedding scene, in case.

One can understand why producers would wish to avoid causing offence to viewers, but why would they imagine that a Christian symbol placed at the centre of a Christian place of worship is an offensive image? Presumably, the audience of Coronation Street is more than willing to accept that a cross makes sense as an aspect of .

The programme-makers now accept that a mistake was made in this case. It's quite a serious error, in fact, both from a production and a PR point of view. From a production point of view it's a mistake because the characters at the centre of the episode wanted a traditional wedding, and it is a narrative oversight to exclude the cross from that depiction; and from a PR point of view it's a mistake because the producers have come close to insulting the intelligence of their viewers. On the other hand, there's nothing like a little bad publicity to raise an audience.

Perhaps we could all learn from the wisdom of Alexander Pope: "At every trifle, scorn to take offence; that always shows great pride, or little sense."

In any case, , pictured, is to have the last word. They were paid more a location fee of more than £4000 and they plan to use that money to purchase a new Processional Cross. A perfectly pitched response by this historic church community: graceful, classy, and playfully ironic.

Comments

  • Comment number 1.


    It's not all that long ago that placing a cross on the Holy Table (Altar!!) was a contentious matter in the Church of Ireland, indeed I rather fancy I was a member of the General Synod when the prohibition was repealed (forgive the echo of Lord Emsworth). The CoE of course went through that argument a century earlier when a low church vicar, assuming it referred to a processional cross, reputedly altered Baring-Gould's famous hymn to read: "Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus left behind the door".

  • Comment number 2.

    Portwyne from what I can tell from the church's website, it was an altar in their case!

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