The Marcia and Audrey storyline - are Corrie pulling it back from the brink?

I know Marcia's taken a terrible slagging about wigs, teeth, dress sense, you name it, but I have to admit I'm quite gripped by the Mark/Audrey storyline at the moment. I'd go so far as to say I think it's turning into a Coronation Street classic! It's definitely one I'm not going to forget in a hurry.

Audrey's long been one of my all-time favourite Coronation Street characters, and I think it's good that at 70 years old they have given her a potentially interesting romantic storyline instead of a dull pipe and slippers equivalent. When Marcia first reared her head I have to say I groaned and switched the telly off, thinking this was yet another trashy, ridiculous, headline-grabbing attempt by the producers. Which indeed it clearly is. I really thought that a Corrie stalwart like Sue Nicholls deserved better. And the terrible wig and awful clothes really didn't help - Mark is comfortably off, and supposedly a man of taste - it doesn't make sense that Marcia looks quite so much like she's stepped out of a charity shop fancy dress night.

But I've come round to her a bit. I really liked the way Audrey stood up to Kylie's vicious bullying the other night, and I thought it was great when Marcia appeared in the Rovers for her I am what I am moment. Like it or lump it as my cross-dressing gran used to say.

Interested to see what the next few episodes will bring. Hopefully a better wig...

Andrew Hall to leave Coronation Street

Andrew Hall, who plays Audrey's fella Marc(ia) will be leaving Coronation Street, says today's fab Inside Soap magazine. 

The mag says that Audrey will be broken-hearted when her cross-dressing boyfriend departs in late August.  However, someone will find out about Marc's transvestism before he leaves... I wonder who it'll be?

Transvestite Marc gets beaten up in Corrie

What is with Phil Collinson?  Why won't he allow any straight, fanciable men to be half normal on Coronation Street? 

We've got newcomer Frank Foster who's going to turn nasty and rape Maria and now that Claudia/Audrey (Claudrey?)'s boyfriend Marc is on screen finally we have a bit of man-totty for the older lady viewer to ogle over her tea and biscuits. And what does Phil Collinson go and do? Turn him into a transvestite and then have him beaten up.

Come on, Phil. Give the straight men on screen and the straight female viewers at home a chance to enjoy Corrie a bit more than we do.

Claudia's new fella is a Corrie cross-dresser

Coronation Street spoiler alert today from The Sun, and an odd one it is too.

They reckon that Claudia's new fella Marc will turn out to be a transvestite. Claude and Aude will suspect Marc is seeing someone else when he stands them up - and the pair spot a mystery woman leaving his house. They don't twig that "she" is Marc and when they confront him he convinces them it was his sister. But the truth eventually comes out that he's a Corrie cross-dresser.

Oh well, takes all sorts I s'pose.

Lustbox: Claudia's new fella on Corrie

Reposted with permission from fab TV blog PauseLiveAction

It’s coming to something (old age, perhaps?) when you find yourself sharing an object of lust with Audrey Roberts from Coronation Street.

No, I’m not talking about Nigel Havers – do behave yourself. I’m talking about the man she’s currently bickering with Rula Lenska about. Audrey calls him Marc. I call him actor Andrew Hall. Or, more properly, I call him Russell Parkinson from 70s-80s sitcom Butterflies.

Ah, Russell… I used to get quite breathless when he was on-screen. Maybe it was his very figure-hugging jeans and lovely loose shirts. Or his lovely curly hair and firm jawline. Russell was always successful with the “chicks,” but could be kind and sensitive and (when provoked) nice to his long-suffering mum. He was cool, albeit in a slightly embarrassing, scripted-by-an-older-person kind of way, but he carried it off well.

Unlike his Butterflies “brother” Nicholas Lyndhurst, who went on to become a household face thanks to Only Fools and Horses etc, Andrew Hall kind of faded from televisual view. He’s had bit parts in Holby, Casualty and EastEnders (he was the man Janine almost slept with the night before she married Ryan), but has mainly been working in theatre as an actor and director.

So how has he aged (he’s now in his mid-50s)? Well, with that bone structure you’re never going to go far wrong, and he’s still pretty handsome (though PLA Jr reckons he speaks without his top and bottom teeth ever losing contact with each other). And he’s still got the fabulous, posh caramel voice that used to make my teeny toes curl.  Most definitely worth fighting Rula Lenska for.

Butterflies star joins Coronation Street

Be still my beating heart. One of the big telly crushes I had as a teenager was on the older brother Russell on sit-com Butterflies.  And now, the actor who played him, Andrew Hall is joining Coronation Street.

Andrew will arrive as Claudia's boyfriend. We'll see him on screen on Friday 7 January.

Ooh, I've gone all peculiar.