CORRIE CHARACTERS I LOVE TO HATE...

What's happened to Corrie lately? It used to be fun.. Northern humour mixed every now and again with drama and pathos. I watch it now and it's turned into care into the community with psycho's, gun drama, infidelity and just plain madness. The opening credits have changed and I'm not struck. And if that wasn't bad enough, even some of the characters are getting on my wick. Allow me to take you through the current crop who quite frankly, need culling with a dose of swine flu. Or a plane coming down on the cobbles on it's descent to Ringway airport might do the trick.  

Exhibit A - Nick Tilsley (Ben Price). As if the old Nick played by Adam Rickets wasn't bad enough ie. getting his shirt off at every opportunity, they replace him with Ben Price who was known previously for getting his shirt off in Footballers Wives. And where did he inherit those ears and cleft chin from? Certainly not his screen mother Gail McIntyre who is a cross between a troll and a dormouse. Annoying rating 10/10 - time he treated his hairdresser girlfriend a little better than constantly taking her to the Rovers for a cheese sandwich. Also, it's getting a tad annoying watching Nick deliver each line through gritted teeth as though having his 3rd and 4th vertebrae crushed. 

Exhibit B - Trevor the binman (Steve Jackson). Ignored Janice's advances and offers of a chippy tea each Thursday in order to pursue and indeed bed, factory boss and firebrand Carla Connor. This is about as unlikely a pairing as you'll ever see. Lets look at the evidence, would Carla really fall for someone a) called Trevor? b) who's a binman? c) looks like he could do with a good wash? The answer is never in a month of Sundays. Oh, and he can't act either... Annoying rating 10/10 - bin him now in recycling ie. Holby City or the Bill. 

Exhibit C - Norris Cole and Mary Taylor (Malcolm Hebden and Patti Clare). Watching the build up to this failed romance was bad enough but hit new heights of naffness during the 'Misery' scenes when Mary held Norris captive in their cottage on the Yorkshire moors. Silly storyline punctuated by constant 'a.a.a.a.a.a I love you Norris' or 'a.a.a.a.a I want to get back to the Cabin, Mary'. Watch these two stuttering actors ply their craft. Once you notice the stuttering at the beginning of each line, you can't help but want to drive over to Granada Studios and cut the brakes on their motor home. And please Mary, look to a heterosexual man who will give you the sex you so fervently crave because clearly Norris is never going to provide it... Annoying rating 8/10 nymphomania and newsagents never mix well. 

Exhibit D - Rosie and Sophie Webster (Helen Flanagan and Brooke Vincent). One is a right little strumpet who gets her kit off with alarming regularity - usually with older men or footballers playing for Wetherfield County. Answers to the name of 'Rerrsie' when being beckoned downstairs by her mum. Has ambitions of becoming a WAG or a page 3 model. Her younger sister Sophie (or Surr-phee) when being beckoned downstairs for her tea by Sal, is Rosie's polar opposite. A bible-basher turned recent lesbian. Another unlikely pairing but hey.. it grabs a few more teenage boy viewers from EastEnders. Annoying rating 9/10 - both should have been drowned at birth.  

Exhibit E - Kirk Sutherland (Andy Whyment). Can anyone get through life being so stupid? He manages to bag a few women - Fizz, Julie and his latest love-interest, wheelchair user Izzy, despite not being able to string a sentence together, generally being out of work all the time (his only previous work experience was as a dog walker) and only ever really hanging around with 12 year old lads called Chesney. Annoying rating 5/10 - the Mancunian Forrest Gump. 
  

Exhibit F - Deirdre Barlow (Anne Kirkbride). Doesn't so much act, as points her belt at the other character. Her character is reduced to angst-ridden crying sessions over her lost mam (the superb and sadly missed Blanche) and our Tracy. And what does she sound like when she's crying? A cow in labour, that's what. Truly awful. When she's not crying, she's smoking and ever now and again, treats the viewers to one of those throaty, phlegmy laughs that only a 40 a day smoker can produce. Still, the throaty, crying Dierdre has to be better than vampish Deirdre especially when she embarks on an adulterous relationship. I will never get over the sight of her and Dev having a one night stand. I bet his duvet still smells of Lambert and Butler. Annoying rating 7/10 - anyone got a light?

Exhibit G - Bill Webster (Peter Armitage). Where do I start with Bill. He's annoying in that he leaves half a pint of Newton and Ridley in his moustache. Like Kirk, he manages to bag women at an alarming rate despite talking only of stopcocks, spanners and whippets. He usually has a gormless, mouth-gaping  view on life especially when son Kevin (who Bill thoughtfully passed on the gormless gene to) tells him about important stuff like sh*gging Molly and getting her pregnant or carburettors. Bill's normal response is to wipe the froth off his moustache and say something thought-provoking and deeply philosophical like 'by 'eck our Kevin'. Annoying rating 9/10 - something please unscrew the scaffolding bolts a little cause a little... erm... accident. Tracy Barlow or David Platt will get blamed for it anyway.. 




Have I missed any others? 

CORRIE LOOKALIKEEES...

Have you ever noticed how some of our favourite Coronation Street characters have dopplegangers turning up in the most unlikely places? Take Gail McIntyre for instance. Her emotional, blinking look matched by her simpering voice of 'ooooh, mam' is matched beautifully by the prairie dog. Uncanny resemblance.

Take Janice Battersby and Chucky from Childs Play. Both red hair, scaring staring eyes and both a bit nifty in the sewing machine department. I think Chucky is slightly less scary though...

Kym Marsh aka Michelle Connor has been missing from her role as barmaid in the Rovers Return of late. Rumour has it she's been on some adventures as Dora the Explorer at the ITV studios as a diva in Popstar to Operastar.

SIMON BARLOW - CUTE OR CREEPY?

Corrie's Simon Barlow (played by Alexander Bain) has breathed new life into the dreary Barlow family. He's certainly a better actor than most of them - yes Deidre, that means you. The late Maggie Jones who played Blanche was possibly the only exception. I miss her put downs and acerbic wit.

The latest storyline sees Simon's father Peter Barlow struggling with lapsing back into alcoholism. Corrie got it badly wrong with the Joe McIntyre disappearing man on lake the plotline, but the writers and actor playing Peter Barlow deserve much credit for tackling the issue of alcoholism so realistically. The drama is building as Simon is at the centre of a tug-of-war between his grandparents and Peter's drunken attempts to get him back. Scenes shot at Blackpool are imminent...

Whatever chaos is going on around him, Simon just manages to steal every scene he's in by managing just to look up with those cute cat from Shrek 2 big brown eyes. He also seems to have a natural acting ability way beyond his years. Lines are delivered in helium-pitched, Rochdalesque perfection.

However, to coin Ann Widdecombe's phrase, 'there's something of the night about him'. It's a feeling that I can't quite put my finger on it, but he just reminds me of an old man who's very, very short. A miniature Charlie Chaplin or a cross between Benjamin Button, Stewie from Family Guy and Damian from the Omen. Call it a hunch, but I've noticed that birds don't fly over Granada Studios when Simon does his outside scenes. Chesney's Schmeichal runs round in circles baying at the moon. And another thing...I'm going to ask for a second post mortem on Simon's pet rabbit Liane (shown looking a tad apprehensive in the photo above). Liane allegedly died in the flat fire from smoke inhalation, but I'm sure Simon was seen stuffing a box of Swan Vestas and an ether-soaked hankerchief in his school trouser pockets....

GAIL FARCE

Last night's Corrie was a little surreal. It made no apologies for borrowing the story of the real-life disappearance of the 'canoe-man' for the Joe and Gail McIntyre storyline. The story so far is that Joe's been hounded by loan sharks and to escape the constant threats, he attempts to fake his own death so that wife Gail can cash the insurance money.

Quite how someone who owes a stack of money manages to hold on to a boat, suddenly acquire a car to tow it up to the lakes, sort out mooring fees, get the boat in the water unaided and stay in a luxurious lakeside cottage is a mystery to me. Anyway, Joe plans to disappear on the lake at night, presumed drowned, then lie low in Ireland until the money pays out. Simples. CSI Ambleside here saw a slight problem with the plotline. Surely a drowned body in a lake would show up eventually? Bodies don't normally sink to the depths for eternity unless they're weighted down? I also don't recall Cumbria's lakes having tides or man-eating sharks either, so a disappearing body would be a little problematic.

As in true soap history, the plan went arse up so to speak. Joe and Gail have a domestic and Joe badly sprains his wrist. Joe sails off onto an eerie lake with a full moon and a look of desperation in his tear-filled eyes. Gail meanwhile is left on the jetty with the actress Helen Worth acting her boots off wailing and declaring undying love for Joe.

Fast forward to the middle of the lake. Joe is slowly getting bladdered on a bottle of vodka and gets ready to get into the dinghy to take him to the shoreline when... oh bugger, the dinghy springs free. On a dead calm lake and with not a breath of wind, Joe begins leaning precariously over the side whilst desperately trying to haul in the dinghy. FRom nowhere, a gust of wind to bring down a chimney stack manages to move the mast boom (?) at an alarming rate and unlucky Joe ends up plunged into the icy waters. He then tries to swim back towards the boat but couldn't pull himself up with his damaged wrist. Cue the really dramatic bit when Joe realises this and simply falls backwards to be swallowed up downwards to the murky depths. Call it the cut price Windermere version of Leonardo di Caprio's death scene from Titanic.

So that's it, Corrie goes all Tales of the Unexpected on us. The plan went wrong and Gail the unluckiest bride in history says goodbye to husband number 4. The rest of us witnessed one of the strangest and silliest soap plot in history....