Big name signings to Coronation Street have worked well in the past. Maureen Lipman as Rovers temporary landlady Lillian ‘and never, ever Lily’ Spencer was my own particular favourite. Sir Ian McKellen as conman Mel Hutchwright was sublime. And then there was Sarah Harding, a singer from the band Girls Aloud who turned up this week. There are thousands of excellent, capable actresses available for work. And yet Coronation Street chose to cast ‘a name’ in the role of Robert Preston’s wife Joni who turned up this week on our favourite show. Sinead O’Connor last week declared ‘music is dead’ when Rolling Stone magazine published a picture of Kim Kardashian on its cover. I’m feeling Sinead’s pain. That’s all I’m going to say.

On to much more brighter things this week on Coronation Street, and Roy passed his driving test!

At No. 1 Robert cooked Deirdre’s signature dish of stuffed marrow for Tracy and Ken. He also stayed overnight with Tracy until she found out about you know who (see paragraph one above, I’m not going over Joni Preston’s arrival again, it hurts).

Leanne, Liz and Simon are held captive in Leanne’s flat by Dan, Dan the Brewery Man this week. In a ludicrous scene, a drunken Dan locked two feisty women and a capable lad inside Leanne’s flat. There were any number of pots and pans Liz or Simon could have used to flatten Dan but instead there was panic and pandemonium until Liz managed to flee the flat with Simon. Dan was carted away in a cop car and there was a lovely bit of bonding between Zeedan and Simon. Zeedan’s a character I’ve not warmed to till now so I do hope we’ll start to see more of this side to him, it works.

Gail tries, and fails, to get Michael back this week. She pretends she’s got a leak in the kitchen and calls Michael who goes round to fix it. While he’s there she gives him Battenberg cake. He doesn’t eat it all and she wraps the remainder in foil which he takes to the pub so Eileen can bash it all over the table. I thought this was incredibly cruel and has put me right off Eileen, and Battenberg cake. Gail makes a final play to get Michael back but he spends the night with Eileen instead.

Bethany bunks off school and spends the day with Callum in his flat and at the Dog and Gun. She gets drunk on voddy and although she refuses his offer of a spliff, he takes a picture on his phone of her with it in her hand. He also gets her to do some drug running for him and takes photos of her in action there too.

Tony returns this week but no-one wants to see him – not his son Jason, not his ex-Tracy and not his ex-Liz. Liz does grant him an audience in the back room of the pub where she ends up pummeling him and slapping him for his dirty dog ways. A brilliant scene- and Bev Callard as Liz has been on fire this week, always a joy to watch.

Over at the garage, Kev gets an offer he can’t refuse when a fella he knows offers to sell him his garage. Kev’s all suited and booted as he makes his way to business meetings and the bank and Sally’s impressed. It doesn’t take much to turn Sally’s head, unfortunately for Tim, who notices what’s going on. Deciding he doesn’t want to lose Sally to Kev, Tim proposes to Sally and in some style too. Well, I say style. It all depends if you like Take That blaring out of a ghetto blaster and being proposed to by a fella with a bunch of Dev’s flowers in his hand while he’s kneeling on the cobbles in front of a knicker-stitching factory. But it’s a style Sally likes and she says ‘yes’.

And that's just about that for this week.

Remember, you can sign up to get these Corrie weekly updates by email at http://www.corrie.net/updates/weekly/subscribe.htm

This week’s writers were Julie Jones (Monday double); Susan Oudot (Wednesday); Mark Burt (Thursday); Jayne Hollinson and Ben Tagoe (Friday double). Find out all about the Coronation Street writing team at http://coronationstreetupdates.blogspot.com/2008/11/exclusive-all-current-corrie-writers.html

Glenda Young
--
Blogging away merrily at http://flamingnora.blogspot.com

Website: glendayoungbooks.com