Well. It's been a funny old year. and not funny ha-ha. So, as I have done in previous years, here are my Corrie Awards of the year. Part Inside Soap award, part Smash hits Poll Winners Party.
Best Actor: Rob Mallard (Daniel Osborne). Showing that grief isn't easy or straight forward, Daniel bounced between mainlining Sinead's pre-death videos, proposing to Bethany, a weird relationship with naughty Nicki, thievery from Geoff, carrying Carla's secret, being a single dad, dealing with his aunty-in-law-slash-stalker, Beth, and his MA, all the while paying for escort hours on Universal Credit (don't tell the Daily Mail).
Best Actress: Dolly-Rose Campbell (Gemma Winter). Proving that she can do more than be the perma-tanned chav from he estate, Dolly-Rose showed her range this year with the post-partum depression storyline.
Runner Up: Jane Danson. She may regret being able to cry on demand as the Corrie writers seem determined to wring every last one out of her big blue eyes. Please Ian McLeod, give her a holiday, she's starting to get that look that Alison King had around 2012 when she was in pretty much every episode.
Best Young Actor: Tanisha Gorey (Asha Alahan). Tanisha is now 18 and is therefore allowed to work adult hours and, as such, has been in more storylines and so Asha has come into her own this year with the skin lightening story, the naked video storyline and the protective dad/contraception storyline. Just dump Cory, Gorey, you know you're too good for him!
Best Newcomer: Mollie Gallagher (Nina Lucas). Victorian Goth (not one of yer modern cybergoths), with a s(n)ideline in snark, Nina has been a breath of fresh air in the cafe with her vegan sausages and general air of hauteur.
Best Return: Debbie Webster (Sue Devaney). There's no coming back from trying to destroy the street, so I don't expect we'll be seeing much more of her. A pity because in my mind, I'd already hooked her up with Dev (couple name: Devvie) and had her sort out Cory with a couple of sharp slaps with her clutch bag.
Runner up: Norris at Stillwater.
Best Villain: There's no competition is there, really. From Speed Daal thievery to chicken murder, escort usage to ex-wife harassment, coercive control to those back garden pelvic thrusts, Ghastly Geoff had villainy sewn up. I suspect that Geoff was originally meant to be banged up at the cancelled trial but Covid put an end to that and Ian Bartholemew is such a good actor that TPTB decided to renew his contract for another 6 months.
Best Gangster: Beating off stiff competition (missus) from Gangsta Gary and Rotten Ray, gay gangster Mick terrorised Todd for a few episodes with everyone telling him that you don't just steal from Mick, he will hunt you down, until Eileen had a strong word with him and then he disappeared!
Best Exit: Bethany, who went off to do an internship in that London where she could apparently afford a one bed flat in a nice area. You just know that she's really living in a damp bedsit in zone 5. If only she'd stayed, we could've been spared all that sex worker stuff with Daniel.
Runner up: The Meerkats. My god, am I glad to see the back of those critters.
Worst Exit: Liz Mc Donald. There's always a lot going on with Liz, and I don't just mean her snazzy outfits. Why, then, was she written out with nary a goodbye episode? Originally, she was supposed to play a part in the Oliver storyline, trying to help, but making things worse and ending up leaving because of that. Covid put paid to that but given that her grandson was dying, you'd think Liz could get an Easyjet flight over from Marbella to see him before he croaked. It can't just have been Corona-related because Bev Callard was happy enough to go off to the jungle of, um, Wales for I'm A Celebrity.
Best New Head: Todd 2.0
Runner up: Summer
Best Partnership: Evelyn and Arthur.
Runner up: Evelyn and Cerberus.
Runner up: Evelyn and Cerberus.
Best hair: Imran's post-lockdown crop.
Worst hair: The dear departed Dr Ali.
Runner Up: Badger boy Adam Barlow. He works pretty much next door to a barbers, there's no excuse.
Most Missed: Audrey, hunkered down in Grassmere drive until the R rate is below one, only turning up to sell the salon or to try to cadge a free V&T at the Rovers.
Runner Up: Vin Weasel at Trim Up North.
Best ITV Crossover: Kenneth! It's good to see Tony Maudsley do a very different character but I do want Gorgeous George from the undertakers to turn up to a funeral in a pair of nylon hot-pants and bumbag. In January. Come on, Jonathan Harvey, write this scene.
Ongoing (and on and on) Storyline: I don't usually want a child to die, not even the ones who scream on public transport or run around under people's feet in pubs, but by the time the life support machine was finally turned off, I was quite relieved: I didn't think I could face another episode of Leanne's patented stomping off, everyone crying around a doll at Kate Oates Memorial Hospital, or shouting at each other and the doctor and no-one bing able to do anything in case it upset Leanne. Having said that, I did find it interesting in terms of emotions vs logic, gut instinct vs the science, parental love vs the experts. Leanne was so deep in denial that she found - to her - logical reasons why people weren't doing what she wanted them to, even if those assumptions were completely wrong. She's always been a battling Battersby, so to give up was unconscionable to her, even thought it would have brought peace to Oliver sooner and not alienated everyone around her.
Written Themselves Into A Corner Storyline: The quads. On Corrie, there are unresolvable problems that suddenly go away: Nick's brain damage, Izzy's pain and marijuana use, what to do with Moira, but the quads aren't going to go away (unless Dolly-Rose Campbells leaves and takes them all). How is it ever going to get any better for Gemma and Chesney? Four ten year olds have different needs to four babies, but still, it's four times the problems, and that's before you get onto the casting. Perhaps three of them will always be upstairs playing their tapes Spotify come 2030.
Worst Storyline: The sinkhole.
Runner Up: Tianna not being Grace's child after all. I kind of felt that the writers realised that there was no conclusion to the Michael and Grace storyline, so decided to end it in a sledgehammer/nut kind of way.
Runner Up 2: Shona's brain damage. Being shot at Christmas does not mean that you're doing the school run in a slinky red dress the following November.
Most Confusing Day: It's Wednesday, announced the residents on a Friday, but it was really the second half of Mondays episode. It was Easter in May and not the Eastern Orthodox version. In the end, we had to roll with it, just as we accept that there are no weekends in Weatherfield.
Issue Of The yYear: We've had it all this year: postnatal depression, skin lightening, online bullying, being a gay footballer, mitochondria, coercive control and of course the bad racism. What's been your favourite issue of the year?
Rachel Stevenson - on twitter
