Meet the new hunks of Coronation Street

I thought long and hard before writing this blog post because I think it probably says a lot more about me than it does about Coronation Street!   Ladies of a certain age up and down the country - and some men too - have a new wave of Corrie hunks.  Well, without Peter Barlow, what's a girl to do?

And so, for your delectation, here are the men who rank up there as the current Coronation Street hunks.

Derek Griffiths as Freddie Smith. Leather-clad and drives a motorbike. Has yet to show his true colours towards Audrey and invite her out properly for a drink which she's going to accept and fall in love with the best looking fella she's ever dated.

Richard Hawley as Johnny Connor. Rugged on the outside, smoothie on the inside. A proper softie. The sort of fella you can just imagine smelling of Brut 33. And has a good-looking son in Aidan Connor too.

And Connor McIntyre as Pat Phelan.  As evil as they come and very watchable too.

Are there any more men you'd add to the list of current male-totty on the Street?

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What makes a top Corrie bloke?

Well, we've found out who is fans' favourite Corrie male and it led to think what makes a top Corrie bloke? 

Unlike the countless memorable women who have tread the Corrie cobbles, very few men have really left their stamp on the show and have become 'legends' - exceptions being Ken, Mike, Roy, Jack Duckworth and Fred Elliott.

Steve McDonald received 400 more votes than Percy Sugden who was at the bottom of the poll and there were even over 200 votes between Steve and Peter Barlow who was just as No.5. I imagine it would be a closer call with the top 25 women possibly?

Steve has the qualities of every kind of man in Corrie's history. As pub landlord he's at the heart of the community in the same guise as Alf at the Corner Shop or when Jack ran the Rovers. He's had his share of women like Ken and Mike but he's also been henpecked by Karen and Michelle like poor Stan and Jack. He can be very funny like Eddie Yeats or Graeme and has formed great partnerships in the same way as Reg and Curly or Stan and Eddie.

The classic Corrie man has never been a hunk. They have been ordinary blokes leading ordinary lives. Their jobs are nothing out of the ordinary: pub landlord, cafe owner, window cleaner, bookie, hairdresser, butcher, teacher and builder. Not to sound snobbish, but a man with a higher wage job wouldn't live on the street. Apart from a brief period in 1976-1977, Mike Baldwin opted to live in a swanky flat and lorded over his employees. 

Side by side with strong Corrie women like Ena Sharples, Elsie Tanner, Bet Lynch, Rita Fairclough, Vera Duckworth and Carla Connor, you've had ordinary men like Harry Hewitt, Don Brennan, Gary Mallett and Tyrone Dobbs. I know there have been weak and forgettable women but the women always trump the men with immortality: Alan Howard was Elsie Tanner's husband, Don Brennan was Ivy Tilsley's husband or Luke Strong was Carla Connor's business partner. Remember him??

The recent fad of introducing 'hunky' male characters like Matt Carter, Andy Carver and Luke Britton have led to them become boring characters with no character qualities. Just look at the top 10 men voted by you - with the exception of Peter, Mike and Ken, every other man there is not known for their looks. It is their personalities and traits that stand out.

So that's what I think makes a good Corrie bloke - ordinariness but also that something extra special that makes you love them as a character. 

What about you? What makes a top Corrie bloke for you?

by Llifon

Deirdre: A Life on Coronation Street - official ITV tribute to a soap icon. Available here.

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The Good, the Bad, the Flamin' Useless

Let's take a trip down memory lane. The curlers are in, the HP sauce, thickly buttered bread and a steaming mug of tea form the centre piece of a lovingly furnished dining table. Stan Ogden sits in wait until the fry-up eventually arrives accompanied by the chirping sounds of wife Hilda, mid-anecdote. She flutters about putting the world to rights whilst he pretends to listen, nodding every now and then to show he's paying attention. In what could be described as a typical working class marriage of that era, the Corrie husband served a purpose however useless he was and Stan was the epitome of that. 

"Pull my finger"

Following in Stan's footsteps, Jack Duckworth also personified the bone idle, but loveable Corrie male. The fondness for a pint or three at the Rovers, an eye for the ladies and an apparent allergy to a hard day's work meant that wife Vera was the ultimate long-suffering spouse, a situation which often led to a vicious cycle of misbehaviour, a rollocking from the missus, followed by a few pints to alleviate the stress caused by the rollocking from the missus, followed again by another rollocking from the missus for coming home blind drunk. It was glorious to watch and one wouldn't be the same without the other.

Also from the school of bone idle - Les Battersby. Although perhaps jail of bone idol is more accurate. The Battersbys were cartoon-like in how stereotypically common they were. With the family causing trouble right from the start, hapless Les was often at the centre of their problems. When put with Cilla that familiar Corrie theme of male failure, female disappointment and all the corresponding sound effects (screaming, shouting, insults etc) fall into place.

"I asked for two halves but they only had one glass"

Coronation Street is and probably always will be dominated by the female of the species, but without the lazy, good-for-nothing slobs who test their wives to the limit, the Street would not be the same. A more modern example of the flamin' usless is Kirk. Debateably a few cobbles short of a full street, Kirk is a more modern take on the sloth-like Corrie male. Not so much letting the women do all the cooking, cleaning and going out to work, but not entirely reliable in an emergency. He respects his better half though and 

isn't afraid to show that respect, something the more old fashioned Corrie men weren't so comfortable with.  

In what seems to be a bit of a transitional period for Coronation Street, the type of man described above, that has always been a staple of the show and that have helped make the strong women so prominent, seems to be dying out. New castings have meant that the Street is fully stocked up with new families such as the Connors and lots of new and younger male faces to see Corrie into the future, but will it be the same without the Jack Duckworths, the Stan Ogdens and even the Kirk Sutherland's of this world? If a couple of the most recent long term arrivals are anything to go by, probably not.

Take Andy. Entering on a great storyline of deceit, blackmail and heartbreak - literally in Michael's case - the character had promise. They dragged the initial storyline out a little bit too long but that gave us more time to get used to Andy (or Gavin as he temporarily was), but now he just seems to hover around the periphery of the show, contributing very little. He does indeed seem useless, but not in the comedic, scripted way we like, he's just a bit wet. 

Another floater is Robert. The scenes this week with Simon in the Barlow's yard were touching, and gave us a little insight into Robert's own past, but again he seems weak and a little bit pointless. Perhaps when turbulent Tracy finally sends him over the edge we might see a bit of oomph from the sexy chef.

"It's like talking to a brick wall"

All is not lost however. Tyrone and Fiz have the potential to follow in the footsteps of Jack and Vera. Still quite young, they are already veterans of Coronation Street and the writers have the potential to make them true soap legends. Just imagine Tyrone is his 50s, complete with string vest and pigeons . And THANK GOD for Tim. And Sally for that matter. Their pairing is genius and the new comedy element to Sally's character is just perfect. Tim has quickly become a Corrie favourite and certainly shows elements of that classic, henpecked Corrie bloke. 

We've been a bit obsessed with men on the Coronation Street blog recently. Llifon has been counting down his all time favourite Corrie men, and over the summer Emma gave us some of her thoughts about Corrie's Mithered Men. I also wrote about What Makes a Corrie Man last year. Enjoy.

@StevieDawson


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Corrie's Mithered Men

Coronation Street has a well established history of strong women whose talk, camaraderie and resilience springs from its very foundation. An organic offshoot of such female representation has proven to be the beleaguered male; never too far from a telling off, apparently unable to get anything right despite his best efforts, getting away with what he can when he can, and usually to comic effect.
Names such as Stan Ogden and Jack Duckworth immediately spring to mind, but what of the current men of Coronation Street?

Courtesy of a recent set of Friday episodes, we were presented with a window on how men are perceived by some contemporary Corrie women. The double episode of the 9^th of August opened with Sally and Gail strolling along the street, the former complaining about Tim putting fun ahead of work, and the latter offering the following observation:

“The problem is that most men are on the laziness spectrum. Top end’s lying on the settee all day watching re-runs of Bullseye and eating last night’s kebab, and well, the bottom end is just leaving the lid off the coffee jar, that sort of thing. I think it’s just inherent in men, laziness.”

It wasn’t necessarily laziness that saw the men of that Friday’s Corrie fall foul of its women, but nevertheless, they were undoubtedly playing second fiddle.

Nick learned that Robert was the new chef at the Bistro by finding him behind the bar, already working. Hired by Leanne, Nick had no say in the matter, and tried to exert some belated authority by introducing a trial period which all three knew held no weight. Nor did Nick offer much in the way of advice or encouragement during Carla’s intervention. In a subsequent episode it took Erica to break up with him even though he’d slept with Carla.
We had Michael at the behest of Eileen and Gail, flitting between them like a pawed mouse as he attempted, failed and was caught breaking into Barlow’s Buys. As if his situation couldn’t have been any more dismal, his tool of choice was a spatula.
And while Tony has proven himself worthy of anyone's fear, there was little he could do as an undaunted Liz stamped his flowers into the concrete outside Roy’s with a determined stiletto. We also later saw Tracy move Robert into number one with no regard for Ken who was powerless to intervene.
Perhaps the most hen-pecked of all is Tyrone who appears to be getting it from all angles of late. If Fiz isn’t berating him or fighting his battles for him, he’s under pressure from Kevin at the garage despite having an equal share, and the recent camping holiday saw him completely emasculated by alpha-male Dougie. He wasn’t the only one, but appeared to be particularly singled out for ridicule as he attempted to assert his manhood, and failed miserably.

Poor Kirk is also well used to being on the receiving end of a scolding courtesy of Beth, and as he skipped behind her through the woods, attempting to keep up while she relentlessly berated him for getting them lost, he too secured his place in the ever burgeoning Corrie catalogue of mithered men, joining other existing characters such as Steve, Dev and Tim.

While persistently making little of men is no laughing matter, and is not an activity I engage in, I think what makes it work in Corrie is the manner in which the stories are portrayed and performed. While we can sympathise with the women some of the time, these men have often been victims of ladies who aren't always in the right, and we are encouraged to align ourselves with the men, and celebrate and share in their triumphs, enjoying their antics as much as they do. Indeed, you sometimes get the impression that they wouldn't have it any other way.

With the exception of the very serious and aptly portrayed domestic abuse storyline between Tyrone and Kirsty, for the most part, instances of mithering have generally consisted of light hearted additions to storylines, or subplots which have humour at their core. What is essential is that there are plenty more male characters who don't find themselves mithered, and enough women who don't engage in talking them down to redress the balance and counter the erroneous perception that 'all men are the same'. I did feel that Steve's past treatment at the hands of Michelle and Liz overstepped the mark, and was glad to see this remedied.

Another positive element is that the hen-pecked are given the opportunity to assert themselves, as last Friday's Corrie demonstrated in two ways. Firstly, the opening dialogue saw Steve roundly discredit Michelle's arrogant assertion that Aidan wasn't used to intelligent female conversation with the line "Yeah, I often have chats about renaissance art with Beth Tinker”.

Secondly, when Mary declared cut flowers to be "a time honoured pathetic male gesture," Tim taking the bunch home as an apology to Sally affirmed her assertion. But it also interestingly succeeded in diffusing it. Tim may have skipped out on cutting the grass in favour of a lark about at an art class, but he was thinking of Sally nevertheless, and seized an opportunity to soften her anticipated anger with something he knew she would like.

We didn't see the scene, but such is the quality of the characters that we can easily imagine it play out in our heads; an initially furious Sally mildly chides him with a twinkle in her eye at the sight of the bouquet before picking her best designer vase to proudly display her floral surprise while Tim reclines happily on the sofa cracking open a beer and wondering what's for tea.

As above, there are plenty of male characters who aren't actively harangued by women. Kevin, Jason, Sean, Billy, Callum, Lloyd, Gary, Roy and Zeedan, for example, are all well capable of asserting themselves when necessary.

While I enjoy the balanced comedy which arises from beleaguered males and scolding females, I also like to see men strongly represented. I enjoyed Tony avenging his son, I pitied Jason as he experienced the indignity of talking about being beaten up from his hospital bed, I like Kevin's new found entrepreneurship and Lloyd's decision to reject Andrea. Aidan is also shaping up to be a very positive addition to the male cast.

But whatever happens, there is no denying that the poor hen-pecked Corrie male, who is of such long standing and has provided many hours of entertainment, will continue to be found sneaking off to the Rovers for the apocryphal 'swift half' for many years to come.

By Emma Hynes

www.emmahynes.wordpress.com

Twitter: @ELHynes

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Corrie ladies and lads out on the razz

Some of the Coronation Street ladies were out on the town to attend a fashion show this week. More on that here.

And for the ladies, here's a picture of some of the Corrie lads this week in their best bib and tucker as they went on a lads' night out to see Stereophonics.