Coronation Street Blog: 5 things

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Tuesday, 27 December 2022

Five Things We Learned From Corrie's Christmas

Yes, we're back, for one night only! My mum came round for Christmas Day and, as a result, I ended up watching Corrie for the first time in months (although, full disclosure, my mum prefaced the showing with "I don't know why I bother, it's rubbish now"). Obviously as a fervent follower of the Coronation Street Blog and a listener to The Talk Of The Street I was still aware of roughly what was happening, but this was the first time I'd actually laid eyes on an episode for ages. So here's a Five Things Christmas Special, except it's one of the rubbish Christmas Specials, like the Only Fools and Horses ones they did after they ended the series: overlong, half as funny, and making you wish they'd left things alone with a nice neat ending instead of dragging it back up again.

It's CHRIIIISSSSTTTMAAAS!!! Corrie Christmas Day specials go one of two ways: either it's a heartwarming cavalcade of niceness or it's a relentless murderfest. Fortunately this year it was the first type so we didn't have to watch Rita get her brains blown out across her Christmas pudding or something. The show opened with a montage of everyone's Christmas mornings, which allowed us to effectively rank the households and decide whose we'd like to end up at. The Winters-Brown household looks cosy enough, with everyone in their identical jim-jams, until you realise that there are only three quads present. Meanwhile the adults all look suspiciously relaxed for Christmas morning. My only conclusion is that poor Aled is being used as slave labour and is currently chained to the oven slashing crosses into the bottom of Brussels Sprouts while all his siblings lark about with their new presents. I cannot support child exploitation so that's number 5 ruled out.

Stu was actually dressed as Santa at the Nazir house so that's an absolute no-no. He's nauseatingly cheery the other 364 days of the year; at Christmas he must be more treacly than The Sound of Music. Spending the morning there would be like drowning in melted Chocolate Orange.

There were four hundred people in Eileen's house, which sounds great because it means you won't have to put the heating on - all those bodies will warm the place for you. Plus there's plenty of hands to help with the meal prep and ~~Jodie~~ Glenda could entertain us all with her take on the Christmas classics. The danger is after lunch when all that rich food starts to have its effect on the various digestive systems. Those people are packed together far too tightly in that back parlour. The resulting mass release of wind would result in an acrid atmosphere that would cause light headedness and possibly choking.

The Websters looks fine, a bit boring. They'll all be making a fuss of little Alfie's first Christmas and ignoring Jack, which could be awkward, but since he's about 37 that's not much of a bother. He'll be sat in front of his X-Box with a pint of bitter and a few Hamlets so he'll be fine.

The best option for me would be the Platts. David and Gail looked like they were having a right old time of it, Max was less sulky than usual, and Shona was buried under a lovely warm blanket that covered her stomach for some reason. It looked warm and cosy and since Nicky was once again dragging everyone round to the Bistro for lunch, there wasn't even any cooking to bother with. That'll do. I'll be expecting my invite for next year, David, thanks, unless it's one of the murdery episodes in which case I won't bother.

Today's all about you, sweetheart. Weddings are, of course, pretty dull for the guests at the best of times. You're basically there to be extras in the photos - crowds to highlight how popular the bride and groom are. Holding a wedding on Christmas Day is even more self-centred because you're not only making a public holiday all about you, you're also ruining the festive season for everyone else. They're sat there in a tie and collar being shuffled around when they could be in a pair of joggers inhaling Quality Street in front of Strictly. On top of all this selfishness, Tyrone decided to have a surprise wedding and not tell the bride. You know who else tried to organise a surprise wedding, Ty? Alan Bradley. Exactly.

Unsurprisingly it all went wrong and Fiz left the family home to get a turkey. For some reason, she decided to go to Derbyshire to get it. At least that's what it looked like, unless this is a previously unseen corner of the Red Rec. The car broke down, which is totally feasible when it is owned by an actual mechanic with his own garage, and so Fiz was forced to accept the kindness of a strange old man with a white beard and a red suit.

The two of them wandered off to find a phone box, because of course Fiz had forgotten her mobile, because it's 2022 and the writers still haven't worked out a way to get round that very simple plot spoiler. It's left at home, run out of battery, or no signal; scriptwriters must really hate Barry Vodafone for inventing the mobile. She could've asked one of the many joggers or walkers who passed them if she could use their phone but she was too busy bonding with the gentle twinkly stranger. Was he Santa? Was it a Christmas miracle? Who could say? (No, it wasn't).

Fiz did make it to the altar eventually, with the registrar still there too; he must've been on triple time. It's a shame that after Fiz married Phill in a nice country marquee we're back to the rubbish Chariot Square Hotel set - not even a couple of Christmas trees could cover up its essential drabness. Still, it's lovely that Tyrone and Fiz have finally got married after twenty years of being on again and off again and on again. I'm sure they'll live happily ever after and won't have any affairs or secret babies or anything.

They're dreaming of a White Christmas. One of the reasons I stopped watching Corrie was I saw the previews of Max joining a bunch of far-right nutters and I thought "nope". I'm on Twitter; I can see the deranged rantings of lunatic racists any time I want. I don't need to tune in to ITV three times a week to see some more. I have, however, followed the storyline at arm's length. Did they really have a car bomb? And a terrorist training camp? Is this an actual storyline that happened? Anyway, the point is, I figured the racists must be incredibly charismatic to lure Max into their web of evil. So I was somewhat surprised to tune in and discover that Christmas With Adolf and Eva wasn't a festive romp in the Eagle's Nest, more a dark afternoon on the set of I, Daniel Blake. That coffee table is straight out of a charity shop and the armchair hasn't been cleaned since the Blair administration. The wreath on the door is made out of empty beer cans! (Although the red white and blue ribbon is very on brand). You wouldn't want to Ding Dong Merrily in there; you'd want to hang yourself from a light fitting by a length of tinsel. Come on Max, what on earth is so appealing about spending your time with a bunch of middle aged losers ranting about how you can't even say "Merry Christmas" because the Woke Stasi will make you wear a sari, or something. Even an afternoon with Stephen sounds more interesting than that.

Incidentally I'm pleased to see that despite being a murderer, a swindler, and having both the fragrant Jenny Bradley AND Paula Wilcox on the go, Stephen is still less interesting than the King's Speech. Has he murdered his ex-wife with the accent yet?

If you like it then you should've put a ring on it. Tyrone and Fiz weren't the only one to have marital shenanigans on Christmas Day, as Daniel proposed to Daisy as well. (I bet Fiz was thrilled to have her thunder stolen). This came shortly after Daisy experienced a cancer scare, just as Sinead before her did. To have one fiancé with a life threatening illness is happenstance; to have two seems a bit fetishy. Mind, Daisy got the all clear and Daniel didn't withdraw the proposal so he must love her for her. Or he's sick of looking after Bertie on his own and needs someone else to take the damn kid to nursery for once.

Daniel's original ring was stolen in a robbery at number one - I presume they stole Tracy and Peter as well, because none of the rest of the extended Barlow clan made an appearance; Adam and Sarah-Lou weren't at the Platt dinner or the Barlows so they obviously couldn't be bothered with any of them - so Ken provided a ring of his own for the proposal. He didn't say where it was from but I hope it's the one he tried to propose to Denise with all those years ago when she told him to get lost. There'd be a nice full circle to that. Now we're going to get Daisy planning a wedding which will no doubt be an absolute nightmare. I hope you've got deep pockets, Dan.

Bury your loved ones. After George bought Eileen a funeral for her present last year, this year he dressed up a coffin as a sofa and presented her with that. In 2023 he'll probably just smash her over the head with a spade and shove her into an open grave. I'm not sure why they thought an open coffin could pass as a sofa, given that the very second Eileen tried to sit on it their subterfuge collapsed. I guess it was "comedy"? I wasn't amused, though I will say that's some lovely woodwork on that coffin. Top drawer craftsmanship.

What did make me laugh was Mary's rhapsodies about a man called Ramon and his magnificent peonies. Apparently, "even the hardiest peonies can wilt in the heat, but Ramon's put a smile on my face every morning for a week." Because "peonies" sounds a bit like "penis", do you see?!?! I love a bit of gratuitous smut.

At the end of the episode Eileen was shocked to receive a month's holiday in Thailand courtesy of Jason, leaving the very next day. Oh aye. Just a quick stop off in the jungle first for you, Eileen.

I haven't been swung back to watching the show, I'm afraid; too much nonsense, not enough fun. Tell me what I'm missing over on Twitter @merseytart.

All original work on Coronation Street Blog is covered by a Creative Commons License

Sunday, 30 October 2022

Five Things We Learned From Five Years Of Five Things We Learned From Corrie This Week

In August 2017, Grand High Poobah Of The Blog Glenda messaged me and asked me if I'd mind covering the regular Five Things blog for her that week. I said sure, and began years of writing a mix of insults about Sean, lustful thoughts about cast members, and increasingly dumbfounded critiques of the storylines in the Nation's Favourite Soap. But now it's coming to an end, so here's a farewell post to cap it off.

Practice self care. At some point in your life you have to look out for you. You have to sit back and look at your life and realise, no, this is not healthy, this is not helping you, you need to stop this. Remember Billy taking heroin in the pews of his church? Or David shouting at scallies on playgrounds in the hope they'll beat him up? That sort of self-destructive behaviour cannot end well. You need to stop and look at the source of your pain and say "I must stop".

This week, I reached that point with Corrie, that final end point. I wasn't enjoying it. I wasn't having fun. It was yet another week where I had episodes building up on my Virgin box and no real desire to watch them. I was sat with my partner as we decided what to watch and he said, "shall we get Corrie out the way, then we can watch something entertaining?" And then I saw the previews and got "Max in a racist grooming gang" and... nope. If this was any other programme in the world I'd have stopped a long time ago. But Corrie is clever; it knows that if it feeds you a load of tripe, it has to occasionally chuck in the bit of truffle to give you hope. You get a load of people being murdered, but they you get Mary's amateur dramatics. You get the sexual exploitation of a young girl, but you also get Steve and Tim sat in the cab office chatting about nonsense. You get a small child dying horribly, but you also get Ryan posing in a pair of blue boxer shorts.

This is a show I've watched, on and off, since I was a child. My mum and dad settled down for Corrie back when it was on Mondays and Wednesdays with me lying on the carpet watching too. I have weirdly strong memories of Gail and Brian's house because it was so different to everyone else's. Renee Roberts dying gave me lifelong roadwork anxieties, and I distinctly remember Sally Seddon getting splashed with water by Kevin Webster. I remember all that, so I'm officially old. And the show isn't really interested in me any more. Even when it hit lows before, when there was Derek's gnome and the Battersbys and Reg flaming Holdsworth in every other episode, I still had hope that it was a momentary lull. It'd get better.

I don't think that way any more. This programme is not very good, and rather than it being a lull, it's a downward path. The storylines have got more and more ridiculous. There are murderers and perverts and criminals all over the place. The emergency services are a constant presence. The Rovers is barely in it any more. I don't like this show and I don't trust that someone's going to take over and make it better. It's going to stay bad, so I'm checking out. This is a different Corrie - one I don't want to watch. If you do, that's great: ITV will love you. But it's not for me.

Six is too many. The show moved from five episodes to six not long after I started writing these regularly, and at first the show seemed to cope. There was Eva and Aidan's disastrous wedding, there was Rita's brain tumour, there was Michelle getting stalked; things were happening and the show was managing to deal with it. We also got that whizzy extension to the set with the totally wrong tram stop which I am still not over. It soon became clear, though, that filming this many episodes was going to be a strain. Multiple units filmed simultaneously, which meant characters vanished for months on end. The cast swelled and swelled, although nobody seemed to move into the swanky new apartment block they'd built and carried on overfilling the two up two downs in the main street.

And yet, weirdly, even though there was more time than ever for the show, the amount of actual character in it plummeted. I've long had a theory that the rot for Corrie started when people stopped ordering drinks in the Rovers. For decades, Alf, for example, would walk into the pub, and something like this would happen:

ALF: Evening Betty. Pint of bitter, please.
BETTY: Alright lovey.
Alf looks down the bar; Ken is reading his paper.
ALF: Evening Ken. Can I get you another?
KEN: That's very good of you, Alf. I'll have a half of bitter.
Betty returns with Alf's pint.
ALF: Same again for Ken please Betty.
BETTY: Alright lovey.

Then Ken would ask Alf how his day was, and Alf would tell him, and you'd get the meat of the scene. That doesn't happen any more. Pay attention and you'll see that most of the time when we cut to the Rovers, people are already sat at their tables or stood at the bar with a drink in their hand. We've lost that little bit of business. You could say that it was pointless anyway, especially Betty basically saying the same thing fourteen times an episode. What it actually did was add character to the programme. It showed people were friends. It established what their regular tipple was. It was... nice. It added to the sense of community.

Community has largely gone from Corrie now. Because of the relentless filming schedule, you're only on set when you have a proper plotline. People mainly hang out with their relatives, because those people also share a house with them, so they can film a whole bunch of scenes at once. Nobody is simply in the pub, having a pint, when other characters are in there. Has Tim ever talked to Nicky Tilsley? Does Yasmeen know Aggie? Kevin and Sally barely talk any more because they both have their own little plot bubbles that don't intersect; same for Tyrone and Kirk. People turn up, say their lines, vanish. Every plotline is IMPORTANT and nobody's just hanging out having a chat. You get couples who have a meet cute, hook up, then don't appear for three months, at which point they have a crisis that tears them apart while us audience members didn't even know they were still dating.

The other problem with six episodes a week is... that's a lot of telly. That's three hours of telly. I watch way too much telly already; three hours of a soap opera is a commitment. Especially if you, say, go out on a Wednesday night, and you realise you have to watch the next episode on Thursday, or you'll have two on Friday - except there's loads of other good telly on Thursday, so a backlog builds up. Three lumps of an hour every other night; fortunately I'm not into any other soaps or watching them all would basically be a full-time job. I'm not exactly a party animal but honestly, who has the time?

Joy is underrated. Television should be pleasurable, and sometimes there are people who embody joy. Emma. Mary. The Blessed Evelyn. Roy. Nina. Tracy Barlow, now she's just a bit of a cow rather than being evil. Tim and Sally. There are characters who are effortlessly funny and happy no matter what happens. One of the pleasures of chronicling Corrie over the past five years has been the progress of the Alahans. When I started, they were a bit of a rag tag family, still recovering from the death of Sunita, still mainly focused on the antics of Sir Devendra. By 2022, however, they were an absolute ball of happiness, central to the street with their unique energy and pure chemistry. I could watch Jimmi Harkishin deliver any line in history - once more unto the breach, Bond, James Bond, that's no moon - and he would find a unique and thrilling new angle for it. Meanwhile, Adam Hussein taking over for Zennon Ditchett proved a game changer for Aadi, as he suddenly blossomed into an adorable nerd with terrible taste in girlfriends. And we must mention Asha, who is so much more appealing now she's not being lumped with Horror Story Of The Week and is simply allowed to be a lovely queer girl larking about the Street being adorable, and who is portrayed by Tanisha Gorey with exactly the right mix of cynicism and amusement. I love the Alahans and in a just world there would be an entire episode devoted to them watching lesbian cinema while Aadi ate the good crisps from the bureau and Mary made supportive yet inappropriate comments about scissoring. (Now bring back Amber, she was ace).

I loved so much about the show over the past five years; mainly the stuff about Mary or Jenny Bradley being astonishingly camp but I'm only human. It still manages to bring in great characters. George is a triumph, as is Glenda, and Dee Dee promises so much. Whenever Corrie embraced its silly side over the past five years I've been so happy. I loved it when it went daft. It's a sitcom that's been wrestled into continuing drama form and that is why it's lasted sixty-odd years. That's its legacy.

Also Imran was ridiculously handsome. This should never be forgotten.

The drugs do work. Obviously the biggest interruption to humanity in the last five years was the Covid pandemic, and Corrie was no different. It coped surprisingly well; besides VE Day turning up in June and a lot of sudden hairstyle changes you'd never have known it happened. Which was, in some ways, a problem. Corrie embraced and also retreated from the pandemic. Overnight everyone was two metres apart but nobody ever mentioned why. Suddenly Sally was wandering around in rubber gloves 24/7 and Debbie was turning up in the corner shop in an amazing face scarf but otherwise they all pretended life was going on. Maria and Gary got married while staying two metres apart at all times which was, on some level, absolutely hilarious; their refusal to kiss in the ceremony would've only been better if they'd celebrated by spraying one another with antibac. I'm not sure how you cope with a global pandemic on a silly little continuing drama without simultaneously devaluing and over emphasising the perils; the real time to make a drama about a global crisis is when we know how it ends.

It meant that the sixtieth anniversary storyline, where Coronation Street was due to be demolished for a skyscraper hotel complex, sadly ended up hopelessly fudged. Some people sold up, some people didn't; a sinkhole was somehow created in David's back yard; there was a weird planning meeting that was sort of dodgy but also not. Then Ken Barlow pretended to be the Tianenman Square Man and it all became a bit tasteless. Personally, I'll remember the sixtieth anniversary mainly for that episode earlier in the year where Rita took a ragtag band of characters - aka all the best ones, but also Sean, for some reason - to a layby to chuck Dennis Tanner's ashes all over the tarmac. That was exactly what I wanted from Corrie, and it still makes me smile.

Breaking up is hard to do. I wish I could find a way to say goodbye here that wasn't a bit rubbish. Much like my relationship to Coronation Street itself, I feel like I should shrug and simply say it doesn't work and that's it. I wish it was some big event that was ending it but it was mainly a realisation that we're just not compatible any more. So I'll say thank you for the good times. For Bet and Alec, and Gail, and Sally and Kevin. For Deirdre and Emily and Norris and Phyllis. For Jack and Vera and Tyrone and Molly. For Mike's big cigar and Rita's papers; for the Rovers and for the Kabin. For so many more fun times and small character moments and general places of entertainment I won't forget and I'll always love. I'll say thank you for being funny and entertaining and I'll wish you well. You can be great Corrie, and loads of people love you. I'm not one of them any more and that's just how things go.

My Twitter handle is @merseytart, though since I'll no longer be talking nonsense about Corrie over there, there's probably no point following me. Thank you for reading, thank you for being lovely, thank you for everything.

All original work on Coronation Street Blog is covered by a Creative Commons License

Monday, 24 October 2022

Five Things We Learned In Corrie This Week

Summer lasts forever. I have news for you: Summer Spellman is now pregnant and OH MY GOD WHO CARES. I'm sorry, I've had enough now. Over the last year or so Summer has been diabetic and been run over and had body issues and boyfriend problems and got into Oxford and then didn't get into Oxford and honestly my cup of sympathy runneth dry. I don't care. Summer v.1 was admittedly a bit of a goody two shoes but at least she wasn't in every other episode. This new one seems to pop up every Friday night with a new crisis that will carry her along for a couple of weeks. She'll be turning up in the next episode, full of angst and crying because she's got a splinter or something. This is nothing against Harriet Bibby, who is an actress earning a wage and I will always support that, but honestly, even she must be wanting a couple of weeks off for a holiday or something.

Also, can we talk about the fact that Summer, of all people, is pregnant? This is a girl who didn't lose her virginity until she had it mapped out on an Excel spreadsheet. In all of that, the idea of contraception never once came up? Summer would've sat Aaron down with a Powerpoint presentation explaining about STDs and pregnancy and why exactly he would need to wrap it up. Also, didn't they only start doing it about six weeks ago? That's barely any time to notice you're pregnant. She must have a menstrual cycle more accurate than an atomic clock.

Perhaps the funniest moment of all this was the idea that Chesney thought he might have got Gemma pregnant. Considering they had sex once and ended up with four kids there is no way that those two don't use every contraception available. Gemma is definitely on the pill and has a coil and Chesney uses eight condoms and maybe even a bin bag held in place with an elastic band before every session; I'm surprised he hasn't performed a homemade vasectomy with a bread knife just to make sure. There is more chance of me getting pregnant than Gemma.

Sisters are doing it for themselves. The Rovers is now being run by a cabal of vulnerable, fractious women with multiple issues and frankly, I wouldn't have it any other way. Truly one of the greatest pleasures in this week's episodes was watching the girls behind the bar gossip and bitch. That's what I watch this show for, for Glenda taking a photo of Stephen's tenner as evidence of payment, for Gemma arriving for her shift in a ball of sparkles, for Daisy finding literally everything everyone else does kind of disgusting. I really, really hated Daisy on her arrival, and I maintain that I was absolutely correct in this instinct: any character who says she enjoys ripping people off, as Daisy did during the whole Sean Double Glammy farrago, is hideous. Fortunately the writers have realised that an unabashed psychopath isn't a great addition to the Street, and instead Daisy has become a social media lunatic who purses her lips at the slightest deviation from the norm: this is infinitely preferable and Charlotte Jordan is so good at doing it. She's still probably too good for boring old Daniel, mind.

Dance like no-one's watching. I'm not sure if Harvey's reappearance was already planned for this time of year or if it's a shameless cash-in on Will Mellor appearing on Strictly. If you've not been following the Corrie/Strictly antics - perhaps because you don't like spending your Saturday evenings watching a television programme full of joy and happiness because you are dead inside - Will Mellor survived having a cold that made him look like one of the Living Dead doing a rumba and is still in the show. Instead, the bottom two place that week went to Exalted Queen Of The Universe Michelle Connor, aka Kym Marsh, who is so over being in Strictly it's kind of hilarious. Basically Kym turned up, realised she wasn't going to win, and checked out so fast she's left a Kym-shaped ball of dust dancing for her instead. If Elstree studios was hit by an asteroid on Tuesday rendering the entire ballroom a crater Kym would shrug her shoulders apathetically. She's still in the show, for the time being, thanks to a dance to Ballroom Blitz that wasn't even as interesting as the last time they did Ballroom Blitz, and she can continue to cash the cheque for another week. Sorry, this was meant to be about Coronation Street, wasn't it? Ok, Will Mellor looks quite hot in prison garb, will that do.

Justice is swift. I hate to return to the whole Charley murder story because I've hated all of it and it's all nonsense. I will congratulate the Weatherfield justice system for sentencing Bridget and Lucy within forty eight hours of them confessing to their crime. That's pretty amazing. No pleas for extenuating circumstances, no psychologist's reports into what could've induced a child to kill, no defence of any kind. Just "I'm banged to rights guv, send me down" and fifteen years in the clink handed out before breakfast. Presumably this is so we can have another precocious eleven year old in the show, because Hope and Sam aren't enough. I was hoping Yasmeen would pop up at some point and say "look, taking in the homeless guy was one thing, but I didn't agree to all his hangers on" and discreetly point Stu in the direction of a housing association. On the plus side Speed Daal appears to be full of customers again so thank goodness that storyline has been resolved by the method of everyone stopping talking about it.

Here's to the ladies who lunch. For the love of God will someone explain the concept of "evening meal" to the Platts? After weeks of forcing Audrey into a bunch of celebratory lunches she didn't want to go to they commemorated Natasha's death with yet another mid-morning meal that meant half the family couldn't turn up. I'm no child psychologist but I think Sam might've had a nicer time at the memorial if he was hanging out with Lily and Harry and Max instead of a bunch of old people yammering on about trauma. Also, I wish Nicky would arrange this somewhere he didn't get staff discount for a change, the cheapskate. On the plus side, we never got to hear Sam's poem, which was almost certainly worse than Covid. It did lead to Audrey and Sam having a fantastic time together, though part of me wondered if Audrey has finally stopped calling him Ben. It'd be amazing if they'd had a lovely bonding experience while she still didn't know his name.

This post was written by Scott's evil doppelgänger, who looks quite a lot like him and commits terrible crimes that he gets blamed for, so if you've got any complaints direct them to him and not to Twitter @merseytart.