‘Coronation Street’ in Crisis, Part 2: 40th Anniversary of Peter Adamson’s Departure

Off-screen Peter Adamson, the actor who played Len, was involved in as many dramas as his character. Some 40 years ago this month, he made his final appearance in the programme. Engulfed by scandal and sensation, he was ultimately axed from the show. Steve Cain looks back at his very public demise. Len Fairclough was the macho man of Coronation Street for twenty-three years. He brawled, he caroused, he sweated and suffered. Men related to him, sympathised with him. Women were attracted by the danger and sexiness. As with so many of the original team, the choice of Peter Adamson had been a masterpiece of casting. “Peter had a great rugged quality, the right face and exactly the right build,” said Bill Podmore, who produced Coronation Street between 1976 and 1988. “His toughness only gave more weight to his acting skills. He turned Len into a wonderfully earthy character who didn’t mince his words but was never unattractive to the legion of fans.” As Len’s popularity with viewers grew and grew, so did Peter Adamson’s belief that Coronation Street could never afford to lose him. Aside from being one of the soap’s best actors he was quite probably its most troublesome, too. In November 1966, Adamson was fined £30 and banned from driving for a year after being arrested for drunk driving. However, the problems really started when Adamson began turning up “pretty tipsy” on set. “He had always got away with it and I don’t think a single viewer ever suspected,” said Podmore. “If they did, they let it pass.” However, his co-stars were not prepared to turn a blind eye. Violet Carson, who played the formidable battleaxe Ena Sharples, complained to Podmore with tact and dignity, saying: “Bill, I really don’t like working with people who have had too much to drink.” One week in 1969, the crucial storyline centred around Len Fairclough and, true to recent form, Peter Adamson was drunk. “Peter had been hitting the bottle for years,” said Podmore. “As he explained later, to escape his fame, the taxman and sorrow for his wife, Jean, who was bravely battling her way through a life of almost constant pain as arthritis slowly crippled her.” Apparently, Adamson could hardly speak, let alone perform his lines and was swaying backwards and forwards. For the first time in circumstances other than a complete technical breakdown filming had to be halted and resumed the following week when Adamson was sober. This incident resulted in Peter Adamson being suspended without pay – a decision which rocked the actor to his core. He spent several weeks in Rossendale General Hospital, drying out, which resulted in him being missing from fourteen episodes. After discharge, he joined Alcoholics Anonymous and beat the bottle at his first serious attempt. In February 1983, Adamson was in trouble with bosses at Granada again. Having sold a series of “behind-the-scenes” stories about his co-stars to The Sun newspaper, he found himself in breach of contract. It was decided that he would, once again, be suspended without pay. But before the suspension could be put into effect, a bombshell would rock the programme to its foundations. On April 24, a Sunday newspaper reported that Adamson had been arrested the previous day on suspicion of two incidents of indecent assault on two eight-year-old girls at a public swimming pool where he assisted as a part-time instructor. “The basis of the complaint was that Peter’s hands had strayed while he had been giving the girls swimming lessons,” said Bill Podmore. “At Peter’s request he was written out of the series while he concentrated on the preparation of his defence.” A highly publicised trial commenced on July 18, 1983. The publicity put him and his family under intense stress and Adamson later admitted that had the verdict at Burnley Crown Court gone against him he would have committed suicide. “Within Granada, many felt that the good name of Coronation Street was also on trial,” said Podmore. “On the morning of the “not guilty” verdict the news was rushed to the rehearsal room, and a great cheer went up. "A terrible cloud had been lifted, but for me the next storm was already gathering.” As Adamson walked free from Burnley Crown Court, he was whisked away by reporters to whom he proceeded to “tell all” about the colleagues who had supported him for so many years – arguably a more damaging deed than any he’d done before. His fee was alleged to have been £60,000, which only covered half of his legal bills. Fellow cast members, notably Pat Phoenix who played Elsie Tanner, said openly that they did not want Adamson to be allowed to reprise his role and accused him of “ratting” on his friends and colleagues. Bill Podmore also felt that Adamson’s behaviour was “indefensible” and the decision was made to sack the actor, who was on holiday in Bali at the time. “He accused me of not having the courage to sack him face to face,” said Podmore. “He himself made that impossible by taking a holiday in Bali when Granada sealed his fate. We had no alternative to put the decision in writing and mail it to his home.” It was agreed that the character of Len Fairclough would be killed in a motorway crash, but it would only happen as he returned home from an affair he had been having behind his wife Rita’s back. “Of course the public saw this as another twist of the knife, and Peter traded on their sympathy,” said Podmore. Adamson claimed this was motivated by sheer spite on Granada’s part, to demonise the character of Len and turn viewers against him. Podmore did not accept this. “He had been a professional actor long enough to realise that if a character of Len’s fame was to be killed off, the sacrifice would only be made with the help of the most dramatic storyline possible.” Peter Adamson’s final appearance as Len Fairclough in Coronation Street was transmitted on May 11, 1983. He had appeared in a total of 1,764 episodes between 1961 and 1983.

​‘Coronation Street’ in Crisis, Part 2: 40th Anniversary of Peter Adamson’s Departure

‘Coronation Street’ in Crisis, Part 2: 40th Anniversary of Peter Adamson’s Departure