Latvia or Bust

Latvia or Bust

Carla went to hospital and had her scan, but she had to go by herself. Peter is off the wagon and dancing alone in rough Manchester boozers to Thin Lizzy. When Carla gets the snap of her baby in the womb, she’s startled to see that it seems to be smoking a fag and drinking a vodka miniature.

Elsewhere Izzy has confessed to nicking a hundred quid from the money they raised on the fun run in Hayley’s memory. She only did it out of desperation, hoping to pay it back fast. She gets a hard time from the other girls in the knicker factory for going as low as it’s possible to get. Julie has a face with a tragedy-stricken look at the best of times, but standing there waiting with the gigantic cheque (of the type Terry Wogan always has on Children in Need) she looked even more stricken than ever. And I must admit, though sometimes it seems as if the actress playing Izzy seems like she’s in another show to the rest of them (being less deliberately over-the-top) she was acting her heart out in these scenes where she confesses and apologises. It was actually quite touching.

Which is more than I can say for the rest of her family. The Windasses are getting dull: we need a breath of fresh air.

I enjoyed seeing Todd getting punched in the face by Tyrone in the Rovers. It’s spoiled by the fact that Tyrone’s just being twisted round crazy’s Maria’s little finger.  What I could do with is another slanging match out in the street and a few more tart rejoinders from the joyous Sean.

When in doubt, Corrie storyliners – send everyone out on the cobbles and get them shouting at each other. Get all this subterfuge and subtext out in the open and let them have a good scrag fight. Corrie always had a touch of pantomime about it – with verbally-quick characters slagging each other off while everyone crowds round to watch. Those are the moments worth waiting for. Just something to let the viewer know that the programme isn’t taking itself far too seriously… something it’s been veering close to of late… with all the wincing and issue-related stuff. Luckily, last night, we had Aunty Beth preparing to jet off to Latvia, where she’s going to have her boobs enlarged.

The scenes with her lovely, caring family trying to talk her out of it were delightful. Again, Kirk quietly nabs the week’s best line. He describes how his bust-obsessed girlfriend did a collage to show him how she’ll look after surgery: sticking her head onto Pamela Anderson’s body. ‘But she got the scale all wrong and it looked like something out of ‘The Fly.’’ But still, he stands back and lets her zoom off to catch a flight to the Baltic States in order to satisfy her urge for transformation.