Five Things We Learned In Corrie This Week

Nice work if you can get it.  The actors in Corrie are paid by the episode - once you've spotted how many people vanish and appear between the first and second show of the night, even though it's supposedly the exact same scene, you can never unsee it - but hopefully they're not paid by the word, otherwise Colson Smith got out of bed for very little reward indeed.  In Monday's second episode, Craig Tinker had exactly three lines:

• "Bethany!"
• "Yeah."
• "Don't cry... argh!"

and the next thing you know he was being silently wheeled into casualty on a gurney.  That DILF who turned up in the taxi office on Friday had more to say and his character was called "Man".  Between his minimal lines and this:

which I'm guessing wasn't him, Colson must've been on set for about half an hour.  He probably got the same tram out of MediaCity he arrived on.

Tone is important.  Wednesday's episodes were dominated by Emma's various familial crises, but they were told in very different ways.  While Emma was rightly highly emotional, spending much of the show either in tears or angry, Steve's side of the storyline was straight up farce, full of gags about super sperm and plenty of Gregson Gurning.  The two didn't mesh well - Emma was sobbing "I want my dad!" at her stepfather's funeral and then Steve turned up in a cab with a DAD wreath on the roof.  Were we meant to laugh or cry?  It was like Ibsen and Ray Cooney had collaborated on a play.  Surely Steve would be a bit emotional about being denied a relationship with his own child?  Still, Morgan reappeared, all grown up!  He mentioned in passing that he didn't know his real dad either - it doesn't matter Morgan, he was a really boring character anyway.  And then Fiona turned up via Skype:

Angela Griffin has aged really well, hasn't she?  She looks more or less the same as she did in the Nineties.  I like this new trend of bringing back characters via video message for actors who are too busy to schlep to Salford Quays.  First Fiona, with Emily yet to come; it opens the floodgates for actors who are far too famous to ever come back properly to contact their friends and relatives who are still in the Street.  Katherine Kelly could send a video hello for Max's birthday, Linus Roache could finally make up for lost time with his estranged dad via FaceTime, and Ian McKellen could try and swindle some money out of Audrey over the net.

Take his PlayStation away and lock him in his room.  It is with great sadness that I must tell you it's Max's turn to be the teen from hell (getting in a bit early because he's only twelve).  Ever since David Platt became the Child of Satan every teenager in the show has to go through a phase where they're absolutely horrible for no reason at all.  Simon was a hooligan for a while, Asha is sulking in her room and screaming abuse at her dad across the way, and even the relatively level-headed Amy started 2019 by having unprotected sex and getting pregnant.  The only down-to-earth kid at Wethy High is Summer, and she's still quite annoying.  I miss the old days of kids on the show, when Tracy Barlow did nothing but colouring in and eating fish fingers until she was sixteen and they finally gave her a storyline.  Anyway, Max is now EVIL, battering Nicky with a plastic cricket bat (the current fashionable present for six year old girls everywhere) and wrecking Lily's party.  Which is a shame, because up until that point it looked like a riot, with Billy grooving to Kylie and Adam getting his horn out for Sarah-Lou.

I know you shouldn't smack a child, but really, I can't help thinking a quick belt round the back of the head would shut Max up for a while.  Leanne looked like she'd be more than capable, managing to bring him to heel in moments with a sharp tone of voice.  

Spend your money wisely.  The Baileys are back, and this time, they've let them all appear onscreen together!  About time too.  It was a shame they were all in a bad mood though as we found out their secret - Edison has a gambling problem and that's why they lost their old house.  I kind of wish they didn't have a serious issue to deal with and were just a nice fun family, but there you go.  The lack of cash meant Mrs Tembe Aggie's card was rejected in the shop; part of me thinks this is their own fault for doing all that unnecessary building work at number 3.  Emily's house was perfectly fine before - you could've lived with it until you were back on your feet and not, say, rebuilt the entire staircase so it faces the opposite way.  And then put in French windows.  And moved the back door.  And built a kind of porch/hall.  And a weird cupboard in the living room.  And put up some really unpleasant tiles in the kitchen.  Number three is unrecognisable now, and it's going to take me a very long time to get used to it.  

Still, at least Aggie has that job in the cafe now to help with the bills.  It's lucky her job as a pharmacy assistant leaves her with loads of spare time to help out, and it's equally lucky that Roy is suddenly suffering a major staffing crisis that means he needs a new employee.  It's almost as if Shona, his principal assistant, is going to be disappearing quite soon and the producers need someone else serving the butties when David Neilson wants a day off.

Don't anger the trainspotters.  When I'm not shouting abuse at the telly, you can find me scooting round the country visiting railway stations.  Hey, everybody needs a hobby.  I was pleased, therefore, to see Irlam station make an appearance when Emma tried to flee to Liverpool.  (They used to go to Manchester Victoria when they needed a railway station, but since they moved out to Salford Quays, they clearly can't be bothered going all the way into town for filming).  I was less pleased to see all the weird inconsistencies.  My anorak rustled angrily when I saw a Trains for Liverpool badly CGI'd over the Welcome to Irlam sign.  Even worse, that's not the Liverpool platform.  It's the prettier platform, yes, because it's got the cafe bar on it, but the trains there go into Manchester.

In a moment that I'm pretty sure was put in the script just to annoy me, Chesney and Gemma somehow ended up on the other side from Emma, and shouted "we're on the wrong platform!".  No, you're on the right platform, it's everyone else who's wrong.

Then there's this departures board, which is all in caps - which is unlikely - and which shows there's a train to Liverpool every half an hour.  So why was Emma sat on that bench for about four hours, giving everyone time to get from the Street to stop her?  Apart from plot mechanics?  Frankly it just wasn't good enough, and I will be writing a stern letter to the producers demanding they consult with me any time a railway station turns up in future, because while they might want to make "entertainment" and "drama" and "a good show", the most important thing is they get the mechanics of the Liverpool-Manchester rail network correct to satisfy the roughly eight people who will notice this kind of thing.  It is, admittedly, better than the last time Irlam turned up in the show, where it was "Mosford" station and it was somehow en route to Chester, but they still need to buck their ideas up.  P.S. I am not a crank.

The author would like to use this forum to apologise to his neighbours for the obscenities he shouted every time Geoff turned up this week.  Have a look at my Twitter feed @merseytart if you want to get a taste of my red-hot fury whenever he's onscreen.

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