In praise of Corrie's Stella Price, again

(This post was originally posted by Flaming Nora on the Coronation Street Blog June 2013, reposted to this blog with permission.)

A second Coronation Street Blog reader has put pen to paper, or at least fingers to keyboard, to write in to us in support of Stella Price.  We've already had Lara's post here in response to our request for Stella fans to defend her, and now we have another.

And so, this time, it's over to Nic Richards...

"Firstly, I think the introduction of Stella and the Prices was great. Particularly following the departure of Janice, Leanne had felt a little cast adrift. Aside from her on-off friendship with Carla, she had no friends (something I would still level as a criticism, both in terms of Leanne and others - some time developing the friendships between female characters in the show would be great), and despite being involved with the Barlows, she had nobody to fight her corner on the many occasions that things went wrong with Peter.

The story regarding her mother wasn't retconned, it had always been written that her mum had left when she was young. Of course the powers that be were going to pursue it some day - this is soap! At least it wasn't a Danny Baldwin or Christian Gatley type affair where they unapologetically rewrote a character's established history in order to introduce a new character!

I thought it was a brave move to put someone completely new in charge at the Rovers following Liz's departure. It was more realistic than the prospect of an existing street resident suddenly revealing a hitherto undisclosed desire to be a Publican, and I couldn't think of a suitable candidate from the existing cast anyway. Michelle seemed to be the only person mooted for the job, but she's been too busy playing Apprentice at t'Faktry and turning a blind eye to all sorts - Steve's history of doing the dirty on her (it's like like they just got back together after a row - he married two women in the time they were apart, for God's sake!), her biological son's existence etc etc..

So, I think establishing a new family was a great move. It was also refreshing that the Prices were almost a nuclear family, rather than a family headed up by a single parent who was obviously destined to rapidly pair off with an existing character.  Yes, Stella was involved in a lot of storylines - but does that not come with the landlady territory? I think the Prices were settling in nicely, and then came the affair..

The scene in the street when Stella found out about Karl and Sunita was brilliant - one of my favourite ever Corrie moments! In the months that followed, throughout his time living with Sunita, Karl had made it obvious that he regretted the affair and losing Stella. Depending which way you look at it, the fact that Stella resisted the temptation to joyfully inform Sunita of Karl's duplicity shows that she was either reluctant to act vengefully, or she was keen to let treacherous Sunita make a fool of herself (I like the think the latter - and good for her!).

I really don't take issue with the fact that Stella sounded caution to Dev when he decided to reconcile with Sunita.  The tradition of the older Corrie woman dishing out advice whilst making a pig's ear of her own life is nothing new. She's the landlady of the Rovers - isn't that part of the job description?! And whether you agree with it or not, Sunita was written as a highly unlikable character for her last year in the show. She had shown full commitment to the relationship with Karl until he called time on it. Only then did she go crawling back to Dev. Stella was right - Sunita's heart wasn't in it.

So, Stella took Karl back. Whilst I gratefully can't speak from experience; I think we're supposed to accept that a man running into a burning building in an attempt to save you is a bit of an aphrodisiac and displays some level of devotion. I guess the magnitude of almost losing her life and his actions to attempt to save her (weird suicide pact moment aside) made her reevaluate things. Remember their backstory - he'd cheated before in similar circumstances and she'd forgiven him.

Anyone watching Corrie in the past decade or more will have, on many occasions, found themselves screaming at the TV as one of the women plans her future with a man that we know to be a wrong-'un (Deidre and John Lindsay, Sally and Greg Kelly, Gail and Richard, Carla and Tony, Maria and Tony, Carla and Frank, Sally and Frank, Gail and Lewis). If you're suddenly bored of that, you can hardly blame Stella!

I can't help but think that a lot of the criticism she comes in for is about her storylines rather than her character. If everyone on the street made the right, sensible call every time, it would make for pretty dull viewing. So there you go, just some of the reasons that I actually like Stella. I hope Liz's imminent return doesn't herald the end of her tenure behind the bar at the Rovers - although a power struggle could be good!"



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