Preview of tonight's Coronation Street - Weds 2 May

Wednesday 2nd May
JUDE’S FISHY TALE IS PUT TO THE TEST In the flower shop Mary coaches the two people she has booked to play Seth and Philippa. Meanwhile at the Marine Centre the real Seth and Philippa are sacking Jude after seeing CCTV footage of him setting off the fire alarm. Jude gets back to the Rovers and tells Mary to abandon the plan but Angie arrives and ushers them all to number 3 for dinner. Will the meal go to plan? 
REALITY BITES FOR TOYAH Toyah spins Peter a yarn about the surrogate being in Tamworth visiting a relative and says she is going to see her. Peter is disappointed she is going alone. When Eva tells the hospital photographer she doesn’t want a photo Toyah is relieved. 
SALLY AND YASMEEN PREPARE TO BREAK BREAD Sally asks Tim to get Geoff over for dinner so they can put him off dating Yasmeen. Tim aso invites Dev and Gina but Sally is aghast when Geoff arrives with Yasmeen in tow.
ELSEWHERE Beth and Kirk are chuffed when David employs them to walk his dog as well as Eccles. Whist walking Peanut, David and Eccles, Kirk helps a woman who is having trouble controlling her dog, impressed she hires him for dog training sessions. 

Wednesday 2nd May
HOW WILL ANGIE REACT TO JUDE’S BETRAYAL? A gobsmacked Angie is furious with Jude and heads over to the solicitors office where she pours her heart out to Adam over a few whiskies. 
TOYAH BREAKS THE NEWS Peter is excited to get a text from Toyah saying the surrogate is in labour. Eva then hides in another room in the cottage whilst Toyah video chats Peter to show him his daughter, they agree to call her Susie. Peter announces the news to the bar. Simon watches it all unfold with mounting jealousy. Toyah watches over the baby and promises Eva she will always look after her. 
TIM’S DAD WORKS HIS MAGIC As everyone tries to reconcile Sally and Yasmeen without success Geoff takes matters into his own hands and miraculously fixes the broken bird feeder. Sally shakes hands with Yasmeen to Tim’s amazement.
ELSEWHERE Johnny tells Aidan that for some reason Jenny has postponed their leaving party. Summer asks Aidan if she can clean the factory to earn some money. On Tyrone’s advice Kirk lies and tells Beth that Sharon, the lady whose dog he is training, is in her sixties.

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Why my dream of seeing Bet Lynch return to Corrie will never come true

I’m tempting fate here, but I doubt we will ever see Julie Goodyear back in Coronation Street. Despite many maybes, you-never-knows, misleading tabloid headlines and recent newspaper reports, there’s no indication that I’m wrong.

              

Corrie Boss Kate Oates hasn’t been afraid of embracing the past and bringing back old characters, or focusing on much-loved and feared dead characters in storylines. And as the Blog has reported, we are soon to see the return of some familiar faces - the latest list of who's coming and going is here.

But the return of Bet Lynch would be BIG. And it would make all my soap dreams come true. My favourite character in Coronation Street is and has always been Rita. She reminds me of the women that brought me up when I was a toddler – warm, northern women with big hair and brassy personalities. Rita’s warm, caring, but no-nonsense approach to life has been much needed in Corrie over the years and I hate to think of the show without her in it. But Bet Lynch is an icon. In my opinion the greatest ever soap character. She sits alongside other iconic creations like Deirdre Barlow, Jack and Vera, Eastenders’ Pat Butcher and Dot Cotton, and the handful of soap legends that graced television screens before I was born such as Elsie Tanner and Ena Sharples. But Bet, for me, stands out. Everything came together perfectly. Her unconventional beauty, the peroxide blonde hair, thick Lancashire accent and famous fashion sense or lack thereof. Little things like the cigarette holder added to her uniqueness. And then there was the lifestyle – married to little fat Alec, working in a backstreet pub but always aiming for better, dreaming of Tenerife but ending up in Blackpool or Brighton. Bet’s was the ultimate working class struggle to get on and be better off.

Classic Corrie

That said she was perfectly happy a lot of the time on Coronation Street, standing proudly behind the Rovers bar, surrounded by friends and sometimes family. Coronation Street suited her more than she’d like to admit, even if she stood out like a sore thumb.

But what would bring Bet back to Coronation Street today? Sadly, probably very little. Sure she has girlfriends and former acquaintances. On meeting Liz it would be like no time had passed at all. Last time they were on screen together Jim McDonald was on the run and the women were at a Newton and Ridley function in Blackpool. Word is that Jim is heading back to the street some time in 2018 so could this be a way of bringing Bet back? To support Liz in whatever trouble Jim brings with him…which of course he will.

Bet would inevitably catch up with Rita. Fifteen years has passed since they sat awkwardly in Audrey’s house on one of Bet’s previous visits back to the cobbles. It was proper telly. Two matriarchs reminiscing, putting the world to rights, setting each other straight. Bet pretending she’d moved on from Weatherfield. “It’s just a tatty little back street pub” she said of the Rovers. I could cry now hearing those words. Bet and the Rovers are one in the same for me.

Legends

What else could tempt Bet back? So many new families she’s never met, many fewer ties than she’s had in a long time. Betty’s gone, and Julie Goodyear didn’t even manage to get back when Betty Driver died in real life. The great Roy Barraclough also passed away last year so it couldn’t involve a reunion with Alec. Although there might come a time when writers want to mention the character’s death. Could he have left Bet something in his will, could it bring Bet and Vicky back to Weatherfield?

There’s a very obvious and likely reason for Bet not coming back to The Street again – Julie Goodyear might be perfectly happy in retirement. Julie’s always been great with the fans and we’ve seen her on our screens in the past few months as a special guest on Stephen Mulhern’s Big Soap Quiz on ITV. Julie can never escape Bet and she came dressed in her famous leopard print and beehive. Cheers from the audience, current cast members (and me from the sofa at home) proved she is still very popular. But little treats such as guest appearances might be all we can hope for now. Julie also does the odd ‘official engagement’ and was recently given the keys to Rochdale, in a ceremony at the town’s beautiful Town Hall. And she might do a few more TV ads. Like this one for…er…Shredded Wheat?

"Shredded Wheat cock?"

Julie herself admitted after her last return to the cobbles that she regretted it and wasn’t made fully aware of the demands of the new schedule, which were too much for her. And that was well over a decade ago. She’s 76 now so would find it even harder. That’s not to say a return couldn’t be written cleverly and they took into consideration her concerns over workload. But then there would be accusations of diva behaviour and special treatment. It's a very different culture at Coronation Street now, and behind the scenes most cast members are treated as equals - a far cry from the days of early Corrie when the younger actors feared even going near the 'stars'.

One last thing that could prevent Julie from returning to Coronation Street is that the public might not actually want it. There's a much younger audience enjoying the show at the moment, and with the arrival of social media, popular characters are never more exposed to the viewer. Today's Corrie fan already knows what they like and what they don't like, and many of them will never have got to know Bet Lynch properly. I'm sure there have been online polls to gauge people's opinion on the matter. I didn't bother doing one, mainly out of fear of the result!

When you weigh up all the possibilities of a return, all the things that would prevent it from happening, the lack of reasons FOR it to happen, it looks very likely we’ve seen the last of Bet Lynch. Julie Goodyear gave us three decades of heart-rending, tense, emotional and hilarious scenes which we can go back and enjoy on the internet or ITV3’s brilliant Classic Corrie every afternoon. So we should be thankful for that. But I see no good reason, if Julie was up for it, the writers could find a way of doing it, and it entertained the viewers, why it shouldn't happen. 

So if there is any small possibility we could see that leopard print and beehive strutting down the cobbles one more time, this Corrie superfan would be very happy indeed.

Come on soap Gods – make it happen.

@StevieDawson

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Julia Goulding Interview: Shona's revenge on Josh

Tell us what happens when Shona looks for David
Shona has already had a very hectic, emotional day and she gets a call from Gail telling her that David has gone walkabout so it’s Shona to the rescue again. Shona is running around Weatherfield looking for him until she finds him in the Urban Garden. She thinks he is sad about his court date but he blurts out to her that he has been raped by Josh.

What is Shona’s reaction to David’s rape ordeal?
It hits her like a brick wall, she’s incredibly angry with Josh.

Does she feel like this has been an explanation to how he has been acting?
When he is telling her that he was raped, he tells he loves her but that is just secondary in her mind at the moment, she’s not thinking about that or their relationship.

Why now has David decided to tell Shona?
His court date is getting closer and closer, he has isolated himself from everybody that he loves and the reality of being sent to prison is hitting him too. He is at his lowest ebb, to the point of him having really dark thoughts, and then something happens that really shakes him and holds up a mirror to his own life and what could happen if he doesn’t talk about what has happened with Josh.

What were those scenes like to film?
They were really emotional; Jack and I really get on and we usually have a laugh when the cameras aren’t rolling but it was a very sombre environment. The crew were amazing and gave us space and time because with such raw emotional you need something that is very real. I am looking forward to seeing the scenes.

Shona encourages David to go to the police but he says he can’t deal with the shame. How does Shona feel about this?
She does respect that that is his choice however because she loves him so much, the injustice and frustration of what has happened and the fact that he is never going to heal from it if something is not done about this situation makes her take it in to her own hands which personally I think is wrong.

What does she do next?
She tries her best to encourage him to speak but he will not so the next time she sees Josh, her emotions get the better of her and she tells him she knows that he raped David.

What does Shona think to Josh’s reaction?
She’s infuriated because he claims it was a consensual, one night stand and he is very casual about it. Josh knows Shona has rumbled him and Shona knows that Josh is lying but she has to control her anger because if she actually did what she wanted to do to him I think she would be on a murder charge.

What does Shona take away from her encounter with Josh?
Shona is a very determined person anyway so she takes away from it that justice has to be served to him. She becomes a bit of, what I call, Sherlock Shona because she is determined to dig up some dirt on Josh and prove that potentially he has done it before or she is waiting for him to slip up.

You’ve known about this storyline from the beginning so how does it feel playing that Shona has just found out?
Because of the nature of it, my own feelings have come in to a lot of this and I find myself getting frustrated because Ryan Clayton is doing such a fantastic job playing Josh! The anger, frustration and injustice is very easy to play and really easy to portray because it is such a horrific subject. Getting myself in to that worked up stage isn’t too difficult but shaking off is a little bit harder.

How do you wind down after scenes?
I get on really well with Ryan so we just have to break away from it, have a laugh and have a cup of tea in the green room.

Do you think that Shona will keep David’s secret?
I personally hope she does because I think it is up to David. The best thing she can do is to encourage and support him to speak out however you never really know until you are in that situation.

How scared should Josh be of Shona?
Very, she is absolutely gunning for him. If I was Josh I’d be absolutely petrified because he has hurt the person she loves most. She’s after justice for David.

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The day I met Ted Sullivan from Coronation Street

Guest blog post from John Hughes, who is on Twitter: @hughesjg
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John Hughes with William Russell, who played Ted Sullivan

John Hughes recently had the pleasure of meeting actor William Russell who played Ted Sullivan, second husband of Rita in Coronation Street.  Here is John's account of the day!

"The Sword-Wielding, Time-Travelling Bon Bon Salesman"

William Russell is best remembered by Corrie aficionados as Ted Sullivan, short-lived second husband of Rita in Coronation Street.

To many others across the globe, however, William is loved and cherished as Ian Chesterton, the first companion for  Dr. Who, between 1963 and 1965. And it was at a gathering of the Dr. Who Appreciation Society that I had the honour of meeting "our Ted" this weekend..

As William was welcomed with a spontaneous standing ovation, there took to the stage a man whose stature and razor-sharp wit belied his incredible 93 years. We were all delighted to share an hour, enjoying his tales, his gentle chuckle and noted the twinkle he had in his eyes when asked to recount his exploits in the TARDIS, on horseback (as the hero Sir Lancelot, a pre Who starring rôle) and, of course, his time on the cobbles. You can take a guess at who might've brought that up...

While his time in Weatherfield may have been brief, the legacy William has left on Dr. Who is immense. It was particularly lovely, therefore, to see him awarded the Outstanding Contribution to Doctor Who (presented by  Jessica Carney, real-life granddaughter of First Doctor, William Hartnell). This resulted in another standing ovation, and Mr. Russell was very moved by the sheer love felt for him in the hall.

To put into Corrie context, imagine if Pat Phoenix, Jean Alexander or Bill Tarmey and Liz Dawn were still with us. Think how much we still love them. That's the reaction 'Ted' received.

A true gentleman, a witty raconteur, a thoroughly decent man. That's 'Rita's Ted'. That's William Russell.

The convention was raising money for Denville Hall, Syrian Refugee Relief, Anthony Nolan and Cystic Fibrosis. All guests, including William Russell, were there to aid the appeals. 

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