Coronation Street Weekly Update - March 29

Welcome to this week’s update (ed. Written by Karen Jankel). Rather like the update office, there here have been more arrivals and departures on Coronation Street recently than King’s Cross Station at the start of a bank holiday weekend. However you’ll be pleased to know that in the case of the update office at least, normal service will be resumed shortly and Glenda will soon be back in the hot seat.

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The week began with Liz waking up on Eileen’s sofa following Becky’s spectacular meltdown the evening before. Even Liz can’t cope with that level of vitriol and decided that the time has come to move out. From Eileen’s she moved on to a nearby hotel; the sort where travelling salesmen try picking up lonely looking women in the bar. Liz, though, was having none of it and seemed greatly relieved when Jim turned up out of the blue to rescue her from her fate.

 Over at the factory, having managed to shoot her mouth off just once too often, Janice collected her marching orders, along with her P45 and a whip-round from her mates which was just enough to get her completely bladdered. How fortunate that Trevor the bin man should arrive back on the scene, ready to help her drink herself into oblivion. Julie – rather foolhardily if you ask me – allowed them to continue their evening at her flat where, we learn later, Trevor had a revelation while he was throwing up into Julie’s bog for the third time (his words, not mine). Fortunately, we were spared the filming of that bit. I then left the sofa for long enough to let the cat out of the back door and when I returned discovered that in that time Trevor had kissed Janice, been fired from his job as a bin man, bought himself and set of wheels and made the life-changing decision to leave Weatherfield behind (again) and head off towards Spain and the open road. He asked Janice to join him and, after a brief row with Leanne who tried talking her out of her decision to leave, Janice packed her bags, kissed and made up with Leanne, leapt into the car beside Trevor and sped out of Coronation Street via a large puddle, spectacularly spraying the assembled company who had lined up on the pavement to wave goodbye.

While Janice was leaving the street, John Stape was returning from hospital having, in theory, recovered from his recent nervous breakdown. He looked in danger of having a relapse with Julie’s over-exuberant greeting on the street but nothing was going to deter him from the chance to cuddle his new baby daughter for the first time. It wasn’t quite enough, though, to distract him from noticing the large array of expensive-looking baby equipment which was filling the front room.

Back at the Rovers, Steve’s attitude towards Becky appeared to soften remarkably quickly considering the events of the previous couple of days, so much so that the two of them took Max off for a day at the safari park, leaving the way clear for Jim to put a plan into action. He invited an old flame of Liz’s from Newton and Ridley to come and inspect the books in the hope that he’d be in a position to buy out Steve and reinstate Liz as the manager. One look at the accounts was enough to convince Richard Wilmore that it wasn’t a good investment but he did give them a free piece of advice: with Liz’s name over the door of the pub, they were breaking the law unless she was actually resident on the premises. So, it’s back to square one with Steve, Becky and Liz all living under the same roof and the two women ready to kill each other at the first available opportunity. Jim though, it seems, has designs on both the pub and his ex-wife; how fortunate, then, that he’s been left enough money by an old aunt to allow him to buy back the pub. Not that Steve knows at this point, or indeed that his parents have enjoyed an amorous snog in the backyard ...

Things were on a more harmonious footing over the road where Sally had finally decided it was time to allow Geoff to stay over. This didn’t exactly go down well with Kevin when he found out, although his mood lightened considerably following an impulse purchase of a lottery scratch card at the Kabin. By rights, the card in question should have been bought by Steve but he allowed Kevin to go in front of him in the queue, so one can only imagine how he felt when Kevin rubbed off the panels to reveal he had won a staggering £200,000. Actually, we didn’t need to imagine how Steve was feeling at all as he made it abundantly clear but Kevin was having none of it and decided to celebrate his big win by buying drinks all round in the Rovers.

Later that same afternoon, Kevin and Sally met at the solicitors’ ready to sign the divorce papers. Kevin made one last attempt to get Sally to change her mind but as she hovered, pen in hand, ready to sign on the dotted line, Tyrone burst into the room, eager to wreak some revenge and tell Sally about Kevin’s big win. This, of course, shed a whole new light on the situation and sent the lawyers from both sides scurrying to seek a second opinion and to work out exactly who was now entitled to a share of the newly-acquired fortune.

The debate continued back at the Rovers once news of the situation started to spread and it was clear from the look on Kevin’s face that he believed he now had a bargaining tool which could make Sally have second thoughts about ending their marriage. Mind you, if I had a bargaining tool like that, I think I might have cashed it in, or whatever you do with scratch cards when you find you have a winning line. Never having had the pleasure myself, I’m not an expert on the subject, but I don’t think I would just leave it tucked inside my wallet as Kevin appears to have done.

Talking of tucking things away, Roy had something inside his apron pocket which he kept glancing at when he thought nobody was looking. At first he refused to share it with Hayley but eventually he confessed that he’d received a letter from his mother and he was too scared to open it. Finally, he allowed Hayley to do it for him and she revealed that Roy’s mother, from whom he has been estranged for many years, had written to tell him that his step-father has died.

Having made a remarkably quick recovery after her fall from the church roof, Sophie started work back at the corner shop but had clearly lost what little cheerfulness she once had somewhere along the way. She couldn’t even bring herself to apologise when she inadvertently short-changed a new customer and instead treated him to the sharp end of her tongue. The lad turned out to be Jack’s grandson Tommy and so if he thought Sophie was unfriendly it’s as nothing compared with the welcome he got from Kevin when he called round at the garage in search of Tyrone. Fortunately for Tommy, not everyone in the street was quite as unfriendly including Sian who was more than happy to allow him to try out some reflexology on her hands when he met her in the cafe. Inevitably it was at this precise moment that Sophie walked in.

Having spent many months backpacking around the world, Tommy knew nothing about his grandfather’s passing and so it was left to Tyrone to break the sad news before inviting him to stay in his spare room for a few days.

And that is more or less it, save for a few hints about the drama to come with the forthcoming double wedding between David and Kylie and Graeme and Xin and the rather surprising news that the new headmaster at the Junior school considers that Simon is a hardened troublemaker whilst Cheryl’s little darling is a child prodigy; one senses this could lead to a certain amount of friction between Leanne and her friend in the weeks to come.

The writers this week were John Kerr, Mark Wadlow, Joe Turner, David Lane
and Chris Fewtrell.