Falling Back in Love with Coronation Street

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

Last night I fell back in love with Coronation Street.

It's not that I've fallen out of love with it totally, we've still had a bit of a thing going on but since last summer's silly season of Stape where Corrie was foisted on us every night for a week to wrap around another ITV media product, I switched off my favourite soap for the first time in my life.  And I'll never forgive Phil Collinson for that. 

Once the summer silliness calmed down I switched back on and got back into Corrie only to be truly disappointed by my favourite soap using rape to boost ratings. And I'll never forgive Phil Collinson for that.

And so it's been like that, Corrie and I over the last few months. The programme's been on, I've been watching and blogging. But I've also been watching and despairing, wondering where the humour's gone, the warmth, and most important to this fan - hating what Phil Collinson has done to kill the emotional strength of the women.

But last night something changed. I can't remember loving two episodes of Coronation Street as much as I enjoyed last night's double bill on Friday 20th January. I'm naming that date on my calendar my Corrie watershed. The programmes blew me away with the drama and humour, both written by Corrie writer Chris Fewtrell.

It's mainly to do with knowing that Tracy Barlow will get that twisted smile knocked off her psycho-face for an episode at least, on Monday next week when Becky ruins her big fat McBarlow wedding to Steve by turning up with that piece of paper she printed off in Doctor Carter's surgery, showing Tracy to be telling lies about losing the twins. The tension - and humour - last night when Becky was frantically logging in and printing off Tracy's medical records while Kylie feined a faint on the waiting room floor was just magic. 

And behind all the shenanigans with Gail joining in to help bring Tracy down, was a desperate Eileen laying herself out as a doormat to get closer to Paul, by trying to be a carer for Paul's wife Lesley, who's struck down with early-onset dementia.  Paul's wife should be getting professional care and I love this storyline for showing how important professional adult social care is in situations like this and how not just anyone can, or should, do it.

I'm also loving Kylie and Becky working together as a team and it's such a shame that just as they're working well and getting on, joining forces to become a formidable sisterhood that Becky will be leaving next week. But her spirit and style will live in on Kylie for sure.

Also last night we had some wonderful, powerful scenes between Anna and Owen where she laid down the law over him hitting little Faye. And just as powerful, for this fan, was Owen sitting down in the cafe with his daughters Izzy (a wonderful character played by a fantastic actress) and Katy and being told some home truths about his parenting skills.

There's a lot to look forward to in the coming months on the Street. We've got more of the wonderful Sylvia with the fab Roy and Hayley and of course Sylvia's man Milton arriving from America. We've got charmer Lewis returning and I can't wait to see Audrey's face when he does. There'll be the fall-out from Tracy's lies being exposed although it doesn't seem to matter what that twisted-bitch does, there's a murmur of discontent from Deirdre, a tut-tut from Ken and a couple of episodes move on and everyone's forgotten all about her latest bit of nastiness, even manslaughter.

So there you have it. I'm falling back in love with Coronation Street. 


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