When Corrie goes 'Colin'

(This post was originally posted by Clinkers(David) on the Coronation Street Blog in November 2017, reposted to this blog with permission.)


For some people, the appointment of Vic Reeves/Jim Moir to the Corrie cast was seen as a bit of a disaster. The character of Colin Whateverhisnamewas didn't gel. I didn't get what he was supposed to be, why he was there and why he suddenly pounced on Helen from The Archers who should have been fermenting her cheese as opposed to propping up a reception desk. One giant misfire for all concerned. Thankfully, Corrie doesn't often lumber us with such non-events as Colin but when they do, they do it in style. Characters so woeful that they stick in the mind for all the wrong reasons. Who didn't work for you? My personal chamber of horrors is open for viewing . . .

Take Amy Burton. No please, take the memory of her away forever. Amy was some sabre-toothed old woman who arrived on the cobbles in 1987. She was Vera's mother and was presumably drafted in to be the new Street battle-axe. Oh dear. Fanny Carby played her not so much to the back row of the theatre, as to Hadrian's Wall. Screeching and snapping, she sallied forth in some bizarre hat that was part tea cosy, part Admiral Nelson. This detestable old trout had little going for her and after a bout of petty thieving, disappeared forever.

Another source of personal annoyance was Sam Tindall. He spent four years trotting around the Street with a dog-in-a-bag called Dougal. We were meant to believe that Sam had the hots for cafe gorgon Phyllis Pearce, despite his somewhat effete persona. The dreary battle with Percy 'gravy under fire' Sugden (and let's not get started on him!) wore us down for years and Sam's only bright spot was when Alf Roberts' arse landed on Tindall's Christmas pud in 1985. We need more storylines of this ilk nowadays, although had it been in 2017, Sam would have confessed to being Alf's long-lost daughter before hurling him from the viaduct. I don't recall Sam having a departure as such and even the redoubtable Phyllis never mentioned him again.

Casting an actor recognisable from another soap can be a tricky move and so it proved to be in 2000 when Gabrielle Glaister arrived in Weatherfield as Natalie Barnes' sister, Debs Brownlow. Gabrielle had spent many years as posh Patricia Farnham in Brookside and now here she was, dropping her h's all over t'place and popping down to th'hairdressers every five minutes. It was distressing to watch and the only hope was that Max Farnham would jump soaps and jam Debs under a hood dryer until she northernised no more. Eventually, having exhausted her 'eeh bah gum' phrasebook, Debs departed with the Geordie cellar man from the Rovers. Or from t'Rovers as she might have attempted.

I for one was agog at the introduction of the very unlovely Lauren Wilson in 2007. Who? Well, remember morose, miserable Violet? She was the Rovers barmaid who always looked as though she was dishing out smallpox to the regulars. Well, they decided to give her a polar opposite sister and - ta-dah! Here's Lauren! From day one she had all the appeal of nails on a blackboard. Played as some sort of thrusting northern doxy from yesteryear, Lauren made Bet Lynch look like Thora Hird. She was so arch that even Sean couldn't compete and eventually he took her on a holiday to Spain from which she never returned. Lauren's probably some over made-up thirty five year old serving drinks on roller skates in Sitges.

There are many whose dull ghosts remain in the Corrie Cupboard. Let's not raise a toast to Henry Wakefield, Hilda's dreary yet somewhat worrying lodger. Join me in not celebrating Kelly Thompson, the woeful nanny who tended to the young Daniel Osbourne twenty years ago and who may have much to answer for. Cheerfully ignore bore-a-thon Xin Proctor with her Children's BBC presenter persona, her collection of hateful Chinese nodding cats and the alarming manner in which she stripped the hapless Graham of any likability. Well done you!

Now we can add Colin Thingy to the Cobbles Collection. Which characters didn't do it for you? Who would you like to remind us of before the mists once again close in and we forget them?

By Clinkers to Riddle, Twitter @BridgLondon

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Tvor @tvordlj on Twitter