This is Coronation St.

What do the Monkees' Davy Jones, Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits, Ben Kingsley, and Prunella Scales, who played Sybil on Fawlty Towers, have in common? Each served time on Coronation Street, the world's longest-running television program (premiering on Dec. 9, 1960) and considered a national treasure in its native Britain. "You know how it is when you come to a new street," one character remarks. "You don't know anyone and what to look out for." For the uninitiated, the documentary "40 Years on Coronation Street," which comprises the first of two discs, will help with orientation, as it charts the series' history and examines its impact on British popular culture (the show's fame ushered in an era of tabloid fascination with soap operas and stars, and we see cast members being greeted with Beatle-esque fervor). The second disc contains the first five episodes of the series (admittedly looking a bit long in the tooth, image-wise), a tantalizing introduction that vividly captures, in the words of its creator, "this whole little world" of the working-class denizens of Coronation Street in the north of England. Unlike, say, Upstairs Downstairs, this series is not so well known in the United States and Anglophiles will welcome the opportunity to catch it from the start. Highly recommended. (K. Lee Benson)