Acclaimed scriptwriter whose humour is right up Corrie’s street

His tongue could not be further in his cheek. The man is a hoot. Which is why he was the perfect person to inject a sense of humour and camp into Coronation Street, sparking what seemed a renaissance of the much loved soap when he joined as a scriptwriter in 2004.

Harvey, who left his native Liverpool to study in Hull, had already hit the big time with Beautiful Thing, the gay- themed play that was turned into a film and with the hit series he created, Gimme, Gimme, Gimme, when he was asked to join the writing staff on “Corrie”.

In 2004 he was asked to write for Coronation Street, drafted in to help with the storyline of gay character Todd.

“It was the executive producer who gave me the final push to write for it. She was so right, it was the perfect fit,” says Harvey. “It came so easily because I had grown up in Liverpool listening to my mum gossip with all her friends and that is essentially the backbone of the show – women gossipping in the back yard.”

With his extensive theatre experience and his instant grasp of what made Coronation Street resonate with viewers, Harvey was the automatic choice when the people behind the show were deciding on how to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the soap. “As the anniversary was approaching, the producers came up with the idea of a stage show celebrating Corrie and the show’s writers were asked to pitch – and they picked me,” says Harvey.

“The idea is to take a Reduced Shakespeare Company approach to Corrie.” The end result is Corrie, a stage show that, in a couple of hours, tells the stories of 50 years on Britain’s most famous street.

“I charted the main stories in each of the 50 years and found a way to try tell those stories. It’s done in a very loving way. You can’t mess around with something like this – it’s so important to people. You have to set out to treat it with respect,” says Harvey.

The result is a show that features the story of Tony Jordan, the Street psychopath, told in the medium of ballet, along with a breakneck ride through the Street’s history.

Corrie, Bradford Alhambra, May 24 to 28. 01274 432000.