Adele Rose (Writer)

Adele Rose was born in Salford. She is most well known for her work on Coronation Street (Granada/ITV Studios 1960-), where she is credited with writing more episodes of the soap opera (457) than any other writer over its 57-year history. However, Adele also created and wrote the drama series Second Chance (YTV 1981), situation comedy Girls about Town (ATV 1969-1971) and children’s television series Byker Grove (BBC and Zenith Productions 1989-2006) and contributed to a large number of other popular series and serials across her 37 year career.

In this interview Adele recalls how Jack Rosenthal encouraged her to write for Coronation Street in January 1961. She recalls how she was the only female writer on the series in its early years and the role gender has played in securing her work on Coronation Street as well as Z Cars (BBC 1962-1978). She shares her writing process and her preference for ‘writing in the round’. She discusses her inspiration of some of her characters in Coronation Street as well as the way the shifting production culture impacted on writing for the series in the 1990s. She discusses her work for other popular series such as Angels (BBC 1975-1983), Rooms (Thames Television 19740-1977) and Within these Walls (1974-1978) as well as ghost writing a column for the TV Times (Tanners Worth) along with episodes of Crossroads (ATV 1964-1988) in the 1980s. She also discusses the three original series that she developed for television and the ways in which Second Chance was based on her own experience of divorce. She reflects on her pride at writing for television, particularly Coronation Street, and the responsibility she perceives writers have to their loyal audiences of soap opera. She discusses how writing enabled her to work as well be a full-time mum and the freedom and independence that writing for television has afforded her.