I'm not generally a fan of bringing back characters who are long gone from Coronation Street. Look at the current cast: Dennis Tanner is no fun at all, and Todd has returned as some kind of predatory gay sex spider, crawling all over the street and hissing bile. There's also the danger that you end up like EastEnders, where a roster of characters are constantly leaving forever before returning again two years later. Sharon Watts seems to be attached to Albert Square by an invisible bungee cord.
I'd much rather the scriptwriters came up with new, interesting characters than rely on the audience's affections for old faces.
However, I would make an exception for Tricia Armstrong. Played by Tracy Brabin, Tricia was in Corrie for only a few years in the mid-nineties, but I thought she was an interesting character and brilliantly played. She was a scraggy, loud-mouthed piece of work, but she had a surprising heart at times and loved the bones off her two sons - Jamie and Brad.
Brad, incidentally, was a Duckworth, the result of a one-night stand with Terry. Wouldn't it be nice to bring a Duckworth back to the Street, now that Tommy is, erm, "indisposed"? He's about sixteen or seventeen now, so the producers could get a teen hunk who can take his shirt off on Digital Spy. You could even bring back Terry for a bit, or at least that moon-sized humanoid who was pretending to be Terry last time he appeared.
Tricia was a good laugh, and Tracy played her with heart and humour. When she turned up as a shelf-stacker in the Sainsbury's ads a few years ago, I was deeply dismayed. (It also undermined the "oh she's just like you!" theme of the ads when we were all going "It's Tricia!"). She could make a return to Underworld, battling with Sally Webster, palling up with Beth for nights in the Rovers, rekindling her surprising but pleasing friendship with Deirdre. Since she has that surname, perhaps she's related to Owen? And since she wasn't an iconic character, a Bet Lynch or an Alec Gilroy, she won't be saddled with the baggage of expectation.
The fact that I'm able to recall her at all, when other characters of the period are happily forgotten (the Mallets? Chris Collins?) is surely an indication that she made an impression. Tina's old flat is going begging now...
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Thursday 13 February 2014
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7 comments:
Oh no I couldn't stand her!
She was brilliant and if they can bring back Joe Gilgun who played her son, all the better!
Christ, no - she was a badly acted whiner.
If written well Tricia and Beth could be a lot of fun to watch together! I miss when the women of the street used to be fun and did things other than sleep with every guy on the street.
I think Beth plays a very similar part to Tricia...
She went to prison for not paying her tv licence as i recall. And I'm sure it got mentioned in the House of Commons, so shocked was an MP that people could be jailed for that
hey guys - thanks for all your comments - good and bad… I LOVE The Street, always have and always will and have very happy memories of working on the cobbles… I'm currently opening in the West End in Simon Beaufoy's The Full Monty (Noel Coward Theatre feb 20th - June 2014) with two another ex Street folk…. Craig Gazey (Grahame) and Ian Mercer (Garry Mallet)… Come and join in the fun!
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