<Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> Wikinews has related news: British soap opera Coronation Street celebrates 50 years on air </Td> </Tr> <P> Coronation Street Live is a live episode of the British soap opera Coronation Street, which was first broadcast on Thursday 9 December 2010 on ITV1 . The special live edition was to celebrate fifty years of the programme being on air . The sixty - minute episode was directed by Tony Prescott, who had directed the soap's 40th anniversary live episode in December 2000 . The episode, the 7487th in the series, was written by Jan McVerry and produced by Phil Collinson for ITV Studios . It was filmed at the Granada Studios complex in Manchester . </P> <P> To celebrate the show's 50th anniversary, episodes had been broadcast every day during the week 6--10 December 2010 under the advertisement banner "Four Funerals and a Wedding". An episode broadcast the preceding Monday showed a gas explosion in local bar The Joinery, causing a tram to crash from the viaduct into the Corner Shop and The Kabin opposite . The live episode continued to depict the aftermath of the accident, such as the rescue attempts and deaths of the characters Ashley Peacock (Steven Arnold) and Molly Dobbs (Vicky Binns), an emergency marriage between Peter Barlow (Chris Gascoyne) and Leanne Battersby (Jane Danson), Fiz Stape (Jennie McAlpine) giving birth prematurely to her daughter Hope and Molly's revelation to Sally Webster (Sally Dynevor) that her husband Kevin (Michael Le Vell) fathered Molly's recently born baby . </P> <P> The episode attracted an average of 14 million viewers, peaking at 14.9 million, the show's highest audience for seven years . Critical reception was mainly positive . According to Daniel Kilkelly of the Digital Spy website the opening of the episode featured the first computer - generated imagery in live television . Jennie McAlpine (who plays Fiz Stape) also became the first actress ever to act out a birth live on a soap opera . </P>

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