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Sexism and Corrie's ill-matched couples

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    #26
    Sexism and Corrie's ill-matched couples

    Well, she can act just like Fiz. Which is to say, annoying and visually....challenging.
    Fiz came into Corrie and was great for years because the writers said to her: 'Can you do jolly for us love? Ah Jenny, you're a dear'. But a character that hangs around for a lot of years is going to have to get deeper storylines and demonstrate a broader range of emotions at some point.

    And that's really not Fiz at all. I mean tell me your teeth didn't begin to itch when she was mangling vowels roughly into the shape of 'Tyrone, I'm really worried about Roy' for the millionth time, while gamely trying to shift her look from totally blank to totally worried.

    Ditto Maria. With her one-paced acting she has totally nailed trusting puppy waiting to be put in a sack and and drowned by the latest no-good boyfriend. But watching her do anything else is deeply horrid, even the most basic stuff like anger.

    Any half-baked actor can come in to a soap and create a character from a blank canvas based upon themselves and their own traits and get away with that for a year or two. Characters who hang around need to be bloody good actors though to handle the maelstrom of soap opera scripting shenanigans that will be thrown their way.

    And that's why Steve is such an important character. The actor that plays him has developed the role from good looking fly-by-night chancer into a fantastic put-upon comic creation, one blessed with impeccable timing. He's the heart of Corrie at the moment and that's a really rare thing for a male character to be. And just to cast more doubt on the point of the opening post, you know he's so going to end up with Andrea who is not out of his League at all - just as Chesney ended up in a much more realistic relationship with the estimable girl whose name I have forgotten, and not with the beauty queen looks of Katie.

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      #27
      Sexism and Corrie's ill-matched couples

      MsD wrote: It's fairly even, but it irritates me that so many storyline are about affairs and no-one can be a happy single for five minutes
      Aye, what's needed is some dreary fly-on-the-wall realism. Like Brookside in the 80s. I lost interest when they caved in to ratings demand and buried Florrie Knox/ Thingy Jordache under the patio.

      dalliance wrote: Characters who hang around need to be bloody good actors though to handle the maelstrom of soap opera scripting shenanigans that will be thrown their way.

      And that's why Steve is such an important character
      Aye. That ratings demand inevitably means younger actors in lurid storylines, but many aren't up to it so they have to keep bringing back Rita and Norris.

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        #28
        Sexism and Corrie's ill-matched couples

        dalliance wrote:
        Well, she can act just like Fiz. Which is to say, annoying and visually....challenging.
        And that's why Steve is such an important character. The actor that plays him has developed the role from good looking fly-by-night chancer into a fantastic put-upon comic creation, one blessed with impeccable timing. He's the heart of Corrie at the moment and that's a really rare thing for a male character to be. And just to cast more doubt on the point of the opening post, you know he's so going to end up with Andrea who is not out of his League at all - just as Chesney ended up in a much more realistic relationship with the estimable girl whose name I have forgotten, and not with the beauty queen looks of Katie.
        Don't get me wrong. I like Steve's character a lot and he produces a lighter foil to the more more dramatic and slightly ludicrous story lines.

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          #29
          Sexism and Corrie's ill-matched couples

          Yeah Steve is the Jack Duckworth of the next generation. A vital character.

          I reckon Rita's the moral centre of Corrie though. Without her, it'd be nothing.

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            #30
            Sexism and Corrie's ill-matched couples

            And blimey, who'd have thought that Corrie would be the single subject in the world on which I most agree with Dalliance?

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              #31
              Sexism and Corrie's ill-matched couples

              E10 Rifle wrote: Yeah Steve is the Jack Duckworth of the next generation. A vital character.

              I reckon Rita's the moral centre of Corrie though. Without her, it'd be nothing.
              Yes, she's very much taken that on much more than Emily who is a very minor character now.

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                #32
                Sexism and Corrie's ill-matched couples

                And the Peter-Tina affair is the most drawn-out, unconvincing, unsexy and tedious Corrie plotline in years. For fuck's sake, someone catch them at it. In fact, they've completely destroyed Tina's character - she was once strident, opinionated and independent; now she's just a sporadically stroppy idiot.

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                  #33
                  Sexism and Corrie's ill-matched couples

                  E10 Rifle wrote: And the Peter-Tina affair is the most drawn-out, unconvincing, unsexy and tedious Corrie plotline in years. For fuck's sake, someone catch them at it. In fact, they've completely destroyed Tina's character - she was once strident, opinionated and independent; now she's just a sporadically stroppy idiot.
                  Is that still going on? Blimey.

                  I dip into Corrie about two or three times a year. I grew up with it being on three or four times a week (no-one was allowed to speak while it was on the TV). That barmaid one that Steve's married too that used to be in that band is stunning. She reminds me of my mate's wife a bit.

                  The blonde one with the mum that runs the posh pub (not the Rovers) is lovely.

                  Is Nick still in it? How's his brain injury? What's Roy doing now? I hope he's not going to have a bleak descent into crippling alcoholism after Hayley's death.

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                    #34
                    Sexism and Corrie's ill-matched couples

                    Toadie and Dee? What do you mean?
                    I mean he was punching above his weight. It seemed like she could have anyone she wanted but out of everyone she chose him, because he was "nice" and "kind", like there's a moral to the story.

                    I also thought in a similar way that Donna was way, way out of Ringo's league. Perhaps he was good looking and I'm being harsh, but she first came into the show as a groupie and he seemed too much of the plain virginal boy-next-door for her, so again it came across being a generally nice pleasant person that does good things is enough to bridge the gap.

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                      #35
                      Sexism and Corrie's ill-matched couples

                      Tina was indeed a great character: a feisty, blowsy madam with that classic Corrie woman big gob on her. Where the writers went wrong was overusing her. For a while pretty much every storyline of note revolved around her until that started to unravel with the badly considered drugs plot.

                      She's a resourceful girl but it was stretching credulousness wafer thin to buy into her bringing down the local gangster with just Rita and her big shiny hair and raincoat combo in tow. Then Tina's character was dealt another blow by being hitched up to the homoeopathically feeble character that was Tommy Duckworth. Now that boy really couldn't act.

                      As everyone agrees, this Peter storyline is pretty feeble too and I think the actress is making a good call in leaving while she can be considered just about ahead.

                      I don't know whether Rita or probably Roy might be considered the moral centre of Corrie, but Steve is the cornerstone of it. Rita is wonderful for 80 but she just isn't in it enough to drive the show, whereas Steve is at the heart of everything good about Corrie. It's often the case with the landlord / landlady of the pub of course but he has the taxi firm too which means he is necessarily involved in most of those scenes there too.

                      Just coming back quickly to the young actors, the most telling example of how hard it can be for the writers to tell who might work out in the longer term was, of course, Graham Proctor. What a left field and utterly fascinating curio he was as a character. The actor who played him was a comic genius in the making and he quickly became a cult character who stole every scene he was in, usually with David Platt.

                      So understandably the writers promoted him to a main character and started to give him conventional stories; what else would you do when you have a character you are trying to cultivate? But it really didn't work and that extra exposure took away everything that was special about him and those great, if occasional, cameos. It was part of the reason Blanche was the best character ever: she was not in it enough to ever get overused and overexposed.

                      Great actor the boy though and I'm surprised I haven't seen him in anything since.

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                        #36
                        Sexism and Corrie's ill-matched couples

                        My significant other and her sister saw him in something on stage in Edinburgh a year or two back, during which he was apparently required to whip his todger out. No, me neither.

                        just as Chesney ended up in a much more realistic relationship with the estimable girl whose name I have forgotten, and not with the beauty queen looks of Katie.
                        Sinead - who the powers that be have gone ridiculously out of their way to 'dowdy-down' in order that she might suit the homely Chesney. The winsome Katie has become an almost worthless character now - I assume they'll find something for her before she retires.

                        So Tina's going to be killed off? Yawn. While I can understand that someone might be driven to lamp her one, I struggle to see what possible motivation Michele (her out of HearSay) might have for doing so, as is being suggested in today's grubbies. And why do they always have to be murdered, ffs? How many killings can occur on one street? (I cannot believe, for example, that anyone would want anything to do at that factory, where at least seven owners have now bitten the dust...)

                        One storyline that does have the making of something is that involving the execrable Pat Phelan - a bona fide slimeball and no mistake.

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                          #37
                          Sexism and Corrie's ill-matched couples

                          frontier psychiatrist wrote:
                          Toadie and Dee? What do you mean?
                          I mean he was punching above his weight. It seemed like she could have anyone she wanted but out of everyone she chose him, because he was "nice" and "kind", like there's a moral to the story.
                          Sorry, I thought my answer and my comment under the photo may have clearly shown my archness there.

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                            #38
                            Sexism and Corrie's ill-matched couples

                            Actually, for all the oddness that was Graham Procter, in some ways he is the most believable. We all know a Graham Procter in some shape or form, don't we

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                              #39
                              Sexism and Corrie's ill-matched couples

                              Rob is Carla's brother, Peter is her cheating husband.

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                                #40
                                Sexism and Corrie's ill-matched couples

                                Aha, of course. I stand corrected.

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                                  #41
                                  Sexism and Corrie's ill-matched couples

                                  Bored of Education wrote:
                                  I went to school with the daughter of the actress that played Linda Cheveski (Else's daughter). Lovely, she was (and still is). The daughter, I mean. Not Elsie's, Linda's. Well, the actress that played Linda's. Oh bugger it.
                                  If we're going down that route, mrs potter went to school with the first Tracy Barlow. Clive Lloyd's daughter was there too, but that's a different thread.

                                  As you were.

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                                    #42
                                    Sexism and Corrie's ill-matched couples

                                    Gail Platt, in her Tilsley years, was also married to the smouldering Chris Quinten.

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                                      #43
                                      Sexism and Corrie's ill-matched couples

                                      I've never known anyone as wonderfully weird as Graham Procter. Again, the actress that plays Katie has no discernible talent and I'd imagine they split up her and Chesney because a) it wasn't believable and b) they wanted to reduce down her role as she can't really hack anything complex.

                                      That Gail Platt has always batted above her station. Now Richard Hillman might have been a homicidal killer (a brilliant one) but even taking that into consideration he was still out of her League.

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                                        #44
                                        Sexism and Corrie's ill-matched couples

                                        I thought Graham (wasn't it Graeme?) a terrible actor and the storyline with Xi was awful.

                                        The Digital Spy forum is very good about Corrie (and very funny), I sometimes have the "live" (current episode) thread on while I'm watching. It goes into meltdown when Fiz is on one ("oooh, poooor Roy, we can't leeeeaaave him") or when there's an icky Peter / Tina scene. The "Suspension of Reality" thread is also very amusing. Yes, it's telly, but some of the plot lines are nuts.

                                        Haven't seen Corrie for four weeks as I've been away, will catch up next week.

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                                          #45
                                          Sexism and Corrie's ill-matched couples

                                          Haven't seen it in decades, but this thread has got me wondering - in the relationship between Stan and Hilda Ogden, who was the 'reacher' and who was the 'settler'?

                                          I think I stopped watching when it got all burlesque with that Reg character and his water-bed.

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                                            #46
                                            Sexism and Corrie's ill-matched couples

                                            I didn't watch it back then , but I really like the comedy touches, like the "Misery" homage with Norris and Mad Mary. They were in danger of overusing Mary at one point but thankfully they reined it in. The black comedy of John Stape (the accidental murderer) was also entertaining. And the time Ken and Roy were suspected of being drug dealers.

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                                              #47
                                              Sexism and Corrie's ill-matched couples

                                              I disagree about the bloke playing Graeme not being a good actor but I agree his exit plot was pretty awful. It's sometimes the way when characters serve notice and a plot line has to be levered in rather than explored more organically.

                                              It is very much the conversations that are asides that make Corrie as much as the big plot stuff. Mary figures prominently here now that they have found the right tone for her wonderful character. A couple of months back and unrelated to anything was a scene with Emily talking to Rita and Norris in The Cabin and telling them she had heard about this recent tv show which was very good and how she had the DVDs to watch at home that afternoon. The show? Breaking Bad.

                                              And then the night that Haley died there was a moment of brilliant comic relief amidst the gloom. Deirdrie was sitting in The Rovers with Emily and Rita and they were talking about what music they would like to have played at their funerals. So Deirdrie says 'I think I'd pick Johnny Cash, I've always liked a deep voice.' Cue camera cut away to Emily and Rita who look at each other very pointedly.

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                                                #48
                                                Sexism and Corrie's ill-matched couples

                                                I disagree about the bloke playing Graeme not being a good actor but I agree his exit plot was pretty awful.
                                                There have been some wretched exit plots over the years - Julie Goodyear (Bet Lynch) suddenly changing her mind over the character's dramatic return ten years ago, being one. The clunkiest-ever soap exit must, however, be that of be Anna Friel (Beth Jordache), who - having become too big for Brookside - suddenly developed a convenient mystery illness in jail and was killed off without so much as a by-your-leave. No one seemed that fussed, but they just 'don't' in soapland, do they?

                                                Gail Platt, in her Tilsley years, was also married to the smouldering Chris Quinten.
                                                Or 'Quentin Crisp', as a girl I used to know was amusingly mistaken.

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                                                  #49
                                                  Sexism and Corrie's ill-matched couples

                                                  dalliance, the Kabin conversations have been the cornerstone of subtle Corrie comedy for years, haven't they?Mavis and Rita were, of course, the long-running double act in there. I think that there is an element of that in Steve and Lloyd's friendship.

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                                                    #50
                                                    Sexism and Corrie's ill-matched couples

                                                    I like the fact that they're using Deirdre's comedy potential, although there always have been running jokes there.

                                                    It's a shame Ken didn't disappear on the barge with the posh lady, he's now inexplicably "away".

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