Brian Armstrong, the former Granada Head of Comedy and Coronation Street producer, has died at the age of 86 of prostate cancer.
Armstrong, who was born in Tynemouth, Northumberland, and attended school in Newcastle, was a producer-director of the current affairs programme World in Action from 1967 to 1969).
During that time he covered the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, smuggling film out in car door panels, and was also tracked by Iran’s secret police at the time of the Shah’s coronation.
He spent six months as producer of Coronation Street from 1971 to 1972 and brought Barbara Knox back to the show to play Rita as a regular, eight years after she had taken the role for a single episode.
Armstrong was made Granada’s Head of Comedy for a decade from 1974 to 1984 and oversaw the sketch show Wood and Walters (1981 to 1982), which was the first TV show to pair Victoria Wood and Julie Walters.
He is survived by his wife, Christine Moffat, who he married in 1964, and their sons Duncan and Gavin.
