Coronation Street Weekly Update, April 7 2008

Greetings, bienvenue and wilkommen to this week’s update. Come in, sit down, you should know by now where the kettle is, so let’s delve into the biscuit tin and crack on with this week’s Coronation Street update. As you know, I like a Tunnocks with my tea but I should point out that other biscuits are available. And so, without any further ado, here we go with this week’s Coronation Street update.

There was summat in the water this week on the Street, summat that fuelled the men into testosterone towers of trousers and a hard hat. If it’s not a burly builder taking up too much space on the screen then it was a passing policeman or a fit fireman as an extra. But when macho masculinity was needed this week to stop David Platt ravaging the Street on his teenage rampage, the real men were in disappointingly short supply. Yes, this was the week when David not only admitted to Gail that he was the one who threw her down the stairs, but he then knocked his mum off her crutches, smashed her flower vase and then went out onto the Street to smash as much glass as he could.

Bish! Roger’s van got it in the windscreen.

Bash! Jack’s front window and Deirdre’s bay window got smashed.

Bosh! Out goes Audrey’s plate glass window in the salon then the phone box and kebab shop and only Jason dares have a go at David as the men of the Street follow meekly behind him. Tyrone squeaks up: “I’m gonna tell his mum,” but she already knew. As the police arrest David for being in possession of a big stick and a sick mind, Audrey yells at them to lock up her grandson and throw away the key. And Gail? Gail goes “Oh, David,” with that look upon her face. You know the one I mean. And then Audrey despairs with “Oh Gay-ayle” Best line of all was Rita in amongst all the kerfuffle who was having her hair done when the window was smashed. She walked out onto the Street with the hair dye on her head, aghast that everyone would now know she wasn’t a real red-head. I know! Isn’t anything sacred? I got a text from my brother at that point, he was shocked, I tell you, shocked, and it may be some time before us long-term Corrie fans will recover from Rita’s revealation.

Yes, my friends, all of this was a lie. It was dye.

Anyway, with David in the cells in tears, Audrey and Gail get drunk on mother’s ruin and after a glass or two of gin, Audrey blames Gail for the way David’s turned out. Gail turns this round wonderfully (gin does that to a girl) and pins the blame firmly and squarely on the shoulders of the fragrant Mrs Roberts. It was all those years of being left alone while Audrey was off gallivanting with some fella or t’other that did it for Gail, she reckons. And that’s why David’s turned out the way he has. It was a wonderful touch from writer Jonathan Harvey (I almost forgave him for the truth about Rita's hair) and sets the scene for Gail’s real dad to turn up on the cobbles soon.

Away from David Platt and the smashed glass this week, Harry Mason’s been giving the glad eye to Liz. He’s got the warmth for Liz, you can tell. I was going to say “the hots” but at his age, the warmth is probably all he can manage. Vernon, bless him, has been doing his best but lets Liz down when his two builders go off on a cruise-ship gig for six months, leaving the smoker’s shelter in the Rovers back yard in a bit of a state. Liz berates her feckless fella but he defends his mates by saying they were musicians-slash-builders “…and we’re all slash-something these days.” Vernon’s next master plan is to revamp the menu at the Rovers. He wants smoked venison, jerk chicken and a lamb shank on the menu and hot-pot off, he tells Liz and Steve. I note, however, that he didn’t have the guts to run the idea by Queen Betty of the Hot Pot herself, oh no. She’d have flattened him.

Elsewhere, news of the fire at Valandro’s spreads like, er, wildfire. Leanne and Paul give their prepared statements to the cops but Amber’s truthful version of events could land them both in it, with a bit of luck. Janice asks Leanne awkward questions about the fire. She knows, does Janice. And Leanne knows she knows.

Meanwhile, Roy spots bat droppings by the building site on the Street. He takes them home, examines them on the kitchen table (as you do of a Monday evening when the telly’s not too good) and tells Becky that as bats are an endangered species, he might have to bring the work on the new flats to a halt. Oh Roy, what would Hayley say?

Over in the Rovers, Alex popped in to see mum Michelle and the two of them eat chips in front of the most appallingly bad bit of painted backdrop the Street’s ever had. All we needed was the microphone to appear in full view from the top of the scene and it could’ve been an episode from 1973 all over again.

Coronation Street writers this week were Peter Whalley, Simon Crowther, Joe Turner, Julie Jones and Jonathan Harvey.

Glenda
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