Preview of tonight's Coronation Street - Sun 24 Mar

Sunday March 24th

ROY IS MET WITH A BLAST FROM THE PAST As tributes are laid outside the factory, there are those who are keen to conceal their guilt. Carla, Nick and Gary are all aware they could be looking at a manslaughter charge if it’s proved they knew how dangerous the roof was. Meanwhile a man enters the cafe and reveals he’s Wayne Hayes, the boy Roy and Hayley fostered years ago. As Carla arrives at the police station for questioning she’s shocked to discover that Wayne is the health and safety inspector. Gary is also called to make a statement. Unable to face everyone Carla decides to get away for a few days. 

THE RESIDENTS STRUGGLE WITH THEIR GRIEF In the aftermath of the factory collapse one family face the devastation, grief and anger that comes with losing a loved one.

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Coronation Street Episode Review; Weds 20th March 8.30pm

As promised, here is part two of this Wednesday's Corrie, all wrapped up in a handy blog review.

With the factory in ruins, Kate is frantically on the phone to Rana as the rescue teams rally round the street. Falling in and out of consciousness, Rana hangs on for dear life. The rescue team, sensing that the factory is now safe, head back into a collapsed Underworld. Ali the doctor also joins the search.
Whilst Carla is (characteristically) at an unfamiliar pub, Peter and Ken are still on the way to Southampton until they receive a call about the accident.

Fearing for Carla, Peter's recent ambivalent feelings subside, and declaring his love for the factory boss, he decides to travel back to Coronation Street.

Back at the wreckage, the emergency teams race to rescue Rana. As Ali locates the stricken bride, he realises that her life is slowly ebbing away and she is struggling to remain conscious.

Quickly locating Rana's phone, Ali speaks to Kate and Imran on the phone and breaks the devastating news that Rana has died (we only see Kate and Imran's reactions).

Arriving back on the street, a stoic Carla stands aghast at the tragic scene she is met with, almost statuesque- and in incredible shock.

Back inside the ruinous underworld, it transpires that Rana is actually still alive (Ali must have felt some Ronan guilt then) and Kate and Imran talk to her on the phone, hoping to raise her spirits.

Feeling helpless, and in typical Kate fashion, she pushes the emergency services aside so she can speak to Rana face-to-face fearing her fiancé's life is about to end.

At the Barbers, David collars Nick and asks him if he had anything to do with the roof collapsing. Nick displays no feeling of guilt and gives David's accusation short shrift.

Peter tracks down a frightened Carla, who is sat on the floor in a foetal position, and in a harrowing state of despair.

Feeling that her final breaths may be imminent, Rana asks Kate to marry her immediately. With speeches reminiscent of Shakespeare, and a romanticism that could have well been written by Lord Byron, the doomed lovers embrace for a final time and Rana's life ebbs away.  

Meanwhile, as Peter consoles Carla she admits what she knew about the dangerous factory roof, then Peter receives a phone call from Michelle, revealing the terrible news to a distraught Carla.

Imran stands in amazement amongst a hive of activity, as an aerial shot of the street brings the drama to a close.

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Five Things We Learned In Corrie This Week

Over-egging the pudding leaves a nasty taste.  The factory roof disaster had been nicely seeded over a long period of time.  Pat Phelan put the new roof on, and we all knew he was dodgy as hell, so it was no surprise to learn he'd cut corners.  It was discovered by a down-on-his luck Gary and then covered up by Carla, who preyed on his need for employment to keep him quiet.  It was an accident waiting to happen and two middle aged women fighting on top of the roof was a good enough reason for it to collapse.  Why, then, did they chuck in all this whodunnit nonsense?  It's as if they made a perfectly good cake then decided it really needed some Marmite frosting on top.  A storyline about a terrible accident causing havoc and the ramifications of Carla's involvement would've been interesting and compelling without a black suited ninja skulking around on the rooftop and waving a crowbar.  Not everything has to be a crime, Corrie producers.  Plus, if you're going to collapse the factory with the employees inside, it's a bit disappointing when the only person who dies doesn't even work there and everyone else gets away with a few scratches.  Sean was also in that factory.  Just saying.

Beware of Doctor Death.  It's been nearly six months since Ali was suspended from practicing medicine for... well, to be honest, I'm still not sure why.  It was due to that awful mate of Ryan's overdosing in his presence, and even though there was meant to an investigation into it so he could start work again, he's still working as a waiter.  I presume this is due to NHS cutbacks or something.  Perhaps it's for the best as his bedside manner seems to be somewhat lacking.  Last year he murdered a man in his car rather than try to help him, and then, in the factory crash, he gave Rana only the most cursory of glances before concluding she was a goner and everyone should start planning the funeral.  He didn't even bother trying to relieve her pain, just chucked some lilies over her still breathing form and wandered off for a coffee.  Maybe he should stick to serving up Cosmopolitans in the Bistro if that's his idea of care.

Now wash your hands. Their limited financial circumstances meant that Sarah-Lou couldn't buy Gary a birthday present.  Instead she offered to pay him in kind, promising all sorts of filthy antics while they had the house to themselves.  All I could think was: where?  They haven't got a bed of their own.  Either they were going to start rutting on the living room floor, where David could wander in at any minute with a bushel of children, or they'd have to borrow one of the beds in the house.  It's hard to believe you could have any kind of orgasm on a pillow that still smells of Gail's Yardley.  Unless that's Gary's kink - he certainly seemed remarkably flirty with his mother-in-law when they were creeping around the kitchen together.  I'm calling it now; she'll be Gail Windass by the end of the year.

Beth is the best seamstress at Underworld.  Finally we have an explanation for the factory's constant state of financial peril.  If Beth Tinker is the best Carla has, only bothering to stitch knickers when she's finished picking her Weetabix out her teeth and throwing casual insults at her co-workers, then it's no wonder she's so keen to pack everything up and get a machine in Milton Keynes to take up the slack.  The good thing about robots is they don't spend all morning skipping doing any work because they're trying to remember the name of the fifth Nolan sister.

Only death can part them.  By my count there have been seven lesbian residents of Coronation Street in its history: Sophie, Kate, Rana, Jenna, Sian, Maddie and Caz.  Two of those seven have now died in tragic accidents, which isn't the best ratio.  It's hard enough getting gay representation on telly without offing them every couple of years.  Unfortunately, the show had trapped itself in a corner by making #Kana such star crossed lovers.  In most Corrie relationships, if one of the actors in an on-screen partnership decides to leave, they have a row and split up; in this case, the show had invested so much in telling us that Kate and Rana were absolutely destined to be together, the only way to end Bhavna Limbachia's time on the show was to drop a girder on her ribs.  It would perhaps have been better if they'd not got back together after they discovered Rana didn't want kids and Kate didn't.  That was a huge, relationship destroying difference of opinion, a crack in their partnership that would haunt them forever, but it was never resolved - they simply decided they didn't like being apart and pushed it under the carpet so there could be a big romantic New Year's Eve moment of fireworks going off behind their kiss.  It also means that fourteen years after civil partnerships became legal in the UK, Corrie still hasn't had a gay wedding that actually resulted in anyone signing a register.  I'm pretty sure half the cast of Emmerdale has been in a homosexual relationship at some point, so maybe they should think about having some Weatherfield gays live in boring domesticity for a while, yeah?

The author is deeply disappointed to learn from Izzy that fig rolls don't count as a fruit.  This may explain why he's the size of a house.  If you have any dieting tips, please send them to him on Twitter @merseytart.

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Charlie de Melo interview: Imran's future on Coronation Street

How is Imran coping in the aftermath of losing Rana?
He’s completely devastated and the way in which he’s expressing that and dealing with it is by projecting everything outwards in a blind fury. It all seems so senseless and he wants to find out who’s responsible, he’s not satisfied with the idea it was just an accident, that’s not good enough for Imran, this needs to be a problem that he can solve. It needs to be someone’s fault, there needs to be a dragon he can slay rather than just dealing with his grief. It’s a distraction tactic from his grief but it becomes his focus.

Does Imran’s anger affect his relationship with Toyah, is he pushing her away?  
He does push back against a lot of her help and support, she’s trying to be measured but it can be difficult if you have a close relationship with someone who occupies a counselling role in their professional life for him to not feel like he’s on the clock, the relationship can feel more like patient and counselor rather than a couple on equal footing and that does cause some friction. It’s a lot to deal with and it becomes the focal point of their relationship but the few times we see Imran really let his guard down it is with Toyah.

Imran and Rana were incredibly close, especially after the problems with their parents and their father’s death, does Imran suddenly feel very alone in the world?
Yes he feels very alone because that was the one relationship in his life that he was always sure of. His marriage didn’t work, he’s had a very strained relationship with his parents, but the one that was a constant was his relationship with Rana and to have that taken out of the equation all of a sudden it does really take a piece of him, she takes a piece of him with her when she goes.

Will we see a very different Imran from now on?
Yes, a relationship that’s been fortified his whole life has taken away in the blink of an eye and the entire dynamic within his family, work and friends is going to be different now.

Imran is determined to find out who can be held accountable for Rana’s death, what are his first thoughts?
His eyes immediately go towards both Nick and Carla in so far as they were in charge of that building and should have known what was going on. They’re negligent at best but as time goes on he takes on a kind of detective role; talking to eyewitnesses, people who worked in the factory, trying to piece the puzzle together

How does Imran react when he overhears Peter urging Roy to ask Wayne to go easy on Carla?  
It makes him more suspicious, surely these aren’t the things you should be saying in the middle of a very serious investigation. There are people who seem to be acting in Carla’s interests rather than those who are directly affected and that becomes something of an obsession for Imran. He wants justice to be served and by people going easy on Carla due to her fragile state it seems to Imran like the wrong person is being prioritised here.

Carla suddenly comes clean at Rana’s memorial and admits she knew there was a problem with the roof, how does Imran react to that?   
It’s a mixture of vindication and an outward pouring of anger towards Carla and all those who haven’t been listening to him. She may not have known the extent of the damage to the roof but as far as Imran’s concerned she may as well have been holding a bloody knife.

The memorial descends into chaos so later in the week we see Kate holding a second memorial, how does this affect Imran, especially when he hears that Yasmeen is opening up the community centre as a temporary factory for Carla?
To Imran it smacks of people carrying on as if Carla’s admission at the first memorial didn’t happen and that’s like a slap in the face. He feels like he’s being fobbed off, he hasn’t got the answers he needs or the justice he so desperately wanted. Not only that he hears that Yasmeen is going to essentially work with Carla and he suddenly feels does no one else even cares about honouring Rana’s memory and finding out the circumstances surrounding her death. It feels like they’re just paying lip service with the memorial and it’s galling for him but then it also strengthens his resolve to getting answers. Others can return to work and step back into a life with some semblance of reality but Imran doesn’t have that anymore, his one constant has been taken away.

Were you sad to see Bhavna go and are you looking forward to playing a different side to Imran?
Yes to both, I’m very sad that Bhav’s gone, she was the first person I worked with here and we’ve always had a really good working relationship and a familial chemistry that I don’t think comes that easily. We had that sibling bond from day one and it made the difficult scenes much easier to film, it was such a nice thing to come into in a job that was so alien to me. I’m really going to miss that but we are going to see a different Imran now and it’s a real challenge. When we’ve seen him in relationships, commanding a courtroom, expressing his anger those things aren’t too exposing as an actor but showing true devastation you really have to crack open your chest a bit and show what’s underneath to make it ring true. I’ve found it very nerve wracking, I wanted to do a good job and do right by Bhavna and for the ripple effects of Rana’s death to continue. But the scripts have been so well written and Faye, Georgia, Richard and Sally Ann have been so supportive that I’ve been able to open myself up and really explore it. I feel like I’ve learnt a lot which is really great.
   
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