Corrie Corner 8th May 2011

(The following also appears as my blogpost on both the ‘Coronation Street Blog’ and ‘Corrie Countdown‘ websites this week.)

Shock, horror: “Child goes missing at seaside.”  Never saw that one coming, did we?  There’s never been a single child in the history of Soaps that hasn’t gone missing the second it’s let out of its bedroom, has there?

Have you noticed too, how Soaps sneak supposedly ‘meaningful’ songs into the background of scenes?  EastEnders do it a lot, and when Steve and Tracy were talking in front of the roundabout, Cheryl Cole’s ‘Fight for this love’ was playing. I’m sorry, but it’s not big, and it’s not clever.

And what about that Policewoman?  Good acting?  The Police car did a better job.  All that most people need in life is a lucky break, and jobbing actors would kill to land themselves a speaking part in a Soap (no matter how small), as – done well – those few lines could mark the beginning of a brilliant career, but it amazes me as to how awful most of them usually are (Solicitors generally being the worst, as they couldn’t convince us night follows day, let-alone that they’d ever had an acting lesson!).

I prefer to watch the Saturday Omnibus (ideally with a bowl of pasta and some nice red wine), but occasionally that can have a downside – like this week, where it turned into the Tracy Barlow show, and after two-plus hours of seeing that trademark smirk at the end of every scene I was both bored and irritated.

There’s only so much deceit we viewers can take at one time, and the Corrie writers usually give us exactly the right dose, but this week was overkill, and I really felt for poor Becky as her life started to truly unravel right in front of her eyes.  As usual, gormless Steve played right into Tracy’s hands, and it was Becky who ended up coming across as the bad guy.

It’s hard for me to watch (as this is the sort of thing that happens to me on a regular basis!), and I really feel so desperately sorry for Becky (as she’s trying so hard to do the right thing), but the more she tries to defend herself, the worse we know it’s going to get for her.

Wasn’t that a wonderful moment when Becky said ‘Tower’ though?  Steve’s face as the penny dropped: classic!  He’s such a great actor, and the fact you just want to throttle him for not realising what Tracy’s up to is proof of that!  I was a bit surprised in the scene in the Cab office where he said he was like “One of those blokes that spin plates on sticks.”  I’m sorry, but it didn’t look quite like that was what his hands were doing as he demonstrated …

The transexual storyline’s coming along.  One of them was the spit of Woman’s Hour’s Jenni Murray, wasn’t she?  Marc and Claudia make me laugh.  They both talk as if they’ve borrowed someone else’s false teeth.  It’s like listening to the snake from Jungle Book!

As usual though, there were lots of laughs along the way.  The tedium of the missing Motorhome was countered by the acting from that great double-act Norris and Mary.  They – and Roy’s mother Sylvia – kept the comedy levels up this week (as well as Lloyd’s hair, which even ‘trended’ on Twitter!), with such gems as “I’m not going there; it’s full of people called Nellie.”

Kylie had a couple of great one-liners in the Kabin, but my Grin of the Week is:

Hayley (to Sylvia): “Perhaps we can have a chat tonight?”

Roy (looking at Hayley in astonishment): “Er, Life cycle of the Anaconda?” (his TV prog)

Hayley (realising): “Ooh, yes.  He can’t be budged when that’s on.”

PS Nice to see Sophie & Sian back this week, but why is it that every lad Sian even looks at starts coming on to her?  Gets a bit wearing. http://bit.ly/jjD5yR