A tale of two Corrie affairs

(This post was originally posted by Flaming Nora on the Coronation Street Blog June 2012, reposted to this blog with permission.)

Affairs are a staple fixture of soapland and Sunita certainly won't be the last Corrie barmaid to be taken up the ginnel for a surreptitious knee trembler. The motivations behind Karl and Sunita's affair lie seemingly in that all-too-familiar affair-making threesome of lust, boredom and opportunity. This being soapland, Sunita and Karl's actions will not go “unpunished” and indeed some fans have started meting out their own punishment. Shobna Gulati, who plays Sunita, has already faced a barrage of criticism from some Corrie watchers via Twitter. Criticism of Karl, however, seems comparatively, though not unsurprisingly, all but absent.

Further down the street a more public love triangle had been unfolding for several months in the form of Eileen, Paul and Paul's wife, Lesley, who had early-onset Alzheimer's Disease. Fireman Paul had arrived in Eileen's life in true romantic hero fashion, their eyes meeting as he freed her head from some railings in an unfortunate birthday-related incident.  As the story unfolded, we watched Eileen (played by the sublime Sue Cleaver) as she first dealt with the realisation that Paul was married and then as she wrestled her conscience when she occupied the simultaneous roles of both Lesley's carer and Paul's lover. From a storylining perspective, I can understand why Lesley was killed off,  though her death felt a little premature. Personally, I would have liked to have seen the complexities and dilemmas of these relationships explored over a longer period of time.

Like most Northern Lasses, I enjoy a good giggle and Corrie is rightly praised for its humour. Indeed, life in Weatherfield would be a poorer place indeed without Norris “the mole” Cole, his obsessive campervan-dwelling sidekick Mary and the walking daft ha'peth that is Kirk Sutherland.  But life on t'street is certainly no sitcom or walk on the Red Rec for that matter. For me, Coronation Street is at its best, its humour at its richest, when its characters are in the thick of it, battling with the complexities and confusions of life, just like the rest of us.

By Our Kelly, follow on twitter @kelwrites

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