ITV to screen Goodbye Blanche documentary

Coronation Street's Blanche Hunt will be honoured in a tribute documentary on ITV next month. Goodbye Blanche will look back at the acid-tongued battle-axe's life, showing clips of her best moments, including her delight at son-in-law Ken's failures and her snide remarks over daughter Deirdre's personal life. Former Coronation Street star Denise Welch will narrate the half-hour special, in which cast members including William Roache, Anne Kirkbride and Chris Gascoyne will also pay tribute to the work of actress Maggie Jones. The much-loved star died in December at the age of 75. News of her character's death will soon reach the cobbles, and Blanche's funeral will screen next month. It is thought that the documentary will be broadcast in the same week as the funeral. Click here to watch whatsontv.co.uk’s weekly soaps video preview, the Soap Scoop

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.