Is Weatherfield a rotten borough?

(This post was originally posted by Clinkers (David) on the Coronation Street Blog in November 2013.)

Now for those of you brandishing your history degrees, don't worry, I'm not about to drone on endlessly about voting irregularities in Victorian England, stimulating though that would be. One of the joys about being involved with this blog is reading other people's comments. When you have waded through an episode of Corrie it's interesting to browse opinions and then wonder if you have been watching something completely different. However, I've begun to notice that, on the whole, we generally seem to view through negative eyes.

For many of the Brits this of course comes as no great surprise. We like a good moan. Most of us would have quite happily fitted in with the harridans at the One o'clock Club. With one or two exceptions though, we all seem to be singing from the same hymn sheet. There are characters, character developments and plotlines that no one cares for. Arguably the concern here is that these collective niggles add up to one unsatisfactory whole.

I tried to be objective and mentally listed the characters who I love to see and who I find uplifting. Roy and Hayley of course. Kylie? Definitely. Then I had to start thinking. My second tier was filled with Carla, Peter, Fiz, Marcus, Deirdre (well, when the scriptwriters are not penning her as either nasty or a loon), Sally, Jason, Tyrone, Leanne, Beth, Tina (not sure why - probably due to Michelle Keegan's great acting), Steve, Eva, Tim (you've got to feel sorry for the bloke - Hyacinth Bucket for a girlfriend and a hard-faced daughter), Lloyd. All good, solid characters who in the main are watchable and who engender interest.

Then there were the rest. I actually groaned last Wednesday at the sight of another crowded little scene around the Tilsley/Platt sofa. Nick grimacing, Leanne stomping in with her lemon-sucking Munch face, Gail doing her usual daft old bat routine . . . poor old Kylie deserved to be beamed out of there. Plus outside, a morose David, possibly wondering when he will eventually escape his twenty year long groundhog day.

The Bistro need to be closed. It's a horribly depressing set and into the dreary hues of orange and brown we now have M'lady of the beige and Catweazle's mother attempting to serve that 'funky' crowd. Wrong on every level but what else can you do with this pair as they work their notice? It doesn't make for edifying viewing though.

The jury (well, my jury consisting of me) is still out re Liz 'Ronald' McDonald. Well, let's face it, she dresses like a clown . . . The return of Liz is a bit like having a memory of a great holiday and then returning to the resort years later, only to discover that it's not as good as you remembered. Had Liz moved one and developed, she would probably be a better prospect. Maybe she will eventually settle but at the moment, for me anyway, Liz just doesn't feel right.

The thoughts of eons of Tracy Barlow beginning every sentence with an angry "Well? Hello?", Eileen frumping her way around the cobbles with her newly-returned acidic son, Rita holding court (she even managed to sweep the pavement in a sanctimonious manner) when she feels like it, Comedy Dev, Not-so-Comedy Sophie, anybody called Windass, everybody called Armstrong, Grandad Chesney .  . . Come Rita! Come and apply your sanctimonious sweeping to this bunch.

Maybe it's just the whole endless, Tilsely/Platt storyline that has left me feeling a little jaded. That's why it is always a joy to feast on the Cropper scenes or Kylie trying to make sense of her confusing family life. Is everything rotten in the state of Weatherfield? Probably not. I'll console myself with a plate of stuffed marrow and a flick through a copy of "Leanne's Happiest Faces". It shouldn't take long.




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