No wonder Coronation Street’s lost millions of viewers – it’s gone from funny and feisty to a worthy woke bore
AS a temperamental teenager growing up in the 1970s, one thing my mother did would have me slamming doors like no other.
Her nightly settling down to the soaps, which seemed to sum up her preference for watching drama rather than causing it — the opposite of me.
I still only have to hear the theme tune to Emmerdale and it makes me want to commit a minor crime against property.
But in adult life, I discovered Coronation Street — and loved it.
Much of the dry northern humour — especially the exchanges between Deirdre Barlow and her mother Blanche Hunt — was worthy of my favourite playwright, Alan Bennett.
The women in general were wonderful and I sought out the ones I’d missed from ITV2’s Classic Coronation Street series. No more
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I wrote here in March about the woeful way the women of Weatherfield have changed — be they brawling sex bombs or humbug-sucking acid drops — into a variety of drips, drabs and dreary doom-mongers.
As I previously noted, sexy Maria quit bed-hopping to worry about climate change, jolly delinquent Gemma spends her entire time fretting about The Quads while smokin’ siren Carla only ever seems to “pop in” to a scene to pick up her car keys — she’s way too “hot” for Corrie now.
Women are the first casualties of woke; see the #BeKind motif on girls’ clothing, never on boys’, though boys could benefit from the advice more, and the way we are encouraged to give up everything from toilets to trophies.
The Corrie girls are no longer sparky humans but interchangeable issue-havers dealing with anorexia, bullying, cyber-stalking, early menopause, diabetes and sex-tape-shaming as a kind of tag team of trauma.
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In a recent scene, three gay men barked at a teenage girl (Summer — supposedly a brain box, but behaves like an over-emotional halfwit) about her “sugar levels”, which led to highly unpleasant optics.
Now a pair of evil Christians are attempting to use her as a surrogate; I can’t help thinking that if a gay couple wanted to rent out her womb, it would be portrayed as a positive thing.
Though Muslims are treated with respect in the Street, the only good Christian is Billy the Vicar, who wears a look of permanent sorrow and does an annoying intake of breath presaging each line — in which he is invariably guilty/sorry/wrong.
On this strange new pod-people Street, which looks the same but has an air of body-snatching about it, 11-year-old boys lecture adults on the superiority of restorative as opposed to carceral justice.
Saintly migrants regularly appear, and reluctance to offer hospitality immediately marks indigenous characters out as either silly or sinister.
Things appeared to be getting interesting when a left-wing gaggle recently rocked up as the crew of eco-nut Spider, spouting anti-capitalist propaganda and conspiracy theories.
I can’t help thinking that if a gay couple wanted to rent out Summer’s womb, it would be portrayed as a positive thing.
Julie Burchill
But self-righteous dry-drunk Peter Barlow soon discovered at an impromptu pop concert that they don’t like immigrants — so they’re not left-wing after all and one of them is an undercover policeman.
You can’t help thinking that the producers lost their nerve about whatever they were originally planning to do and just fell back on the tried and tested Evil Racist trope.
And now ringleader Griff has got his hooks into Max, the token left-behind white boy, ripe for radicalisation, who has in turn taken up with a white supremacist cutie who doesn’t like curry.
Meanwhile, teenage boot boys have taken to calling their victims “snowflakes” — because thugs are really informed about the culture wars.
In case you think I’m exaggerating, I kept a note of the scenes before the first ad break on the evening of November 11.
It went like this:
- Discussion of how people shouldn’t be a scared of asylum seekers.
- Discussion of a child wanting to visit the murderer of his mother.
- Character with diabetes looking peaky.
- Falsely accused murderer sad about his daughter being a real murderer.
- Character “called out” for racism in Roy’s Rolls.
- White working-class boy brain-washed by Islamophobic rabble-rouser.
It’s only being so cheerful that keeps them going!
There have recently been genuinely touching and skilful “issue” storylines — the trafficking of Alina and the murder of Seb come to mind.
From 1998 to 2014, the portrayal of Hayley Cropper — the first ever trans character on a TV series — was totally believable.
But I just don’t think the lightness of touch and playful humour used to create Hayley could happen these days — she’d be a dress-up doll sent to instruct us on diversity, and thus unsympathetic as scolds always are.
Life is hard enough for people today — and getting worse — for them to want to be lectured every time they sit down and seek entertainment.
Watching Corrie used to feel like eavesdropping on a couple of outrageous old matriarchs on the bus, now it’s like sitting in a doctor’s surgery reading public health pamphlets.
Julie Burchill
“A story of working people,” says the proud blurb on ITV Hub.
But Labour lost the Red Wall through lecturing rather than listening and the Street appears to be going the same way.
Though an episode can still claim six million viewers, the audience has dropped by nearly 20 per cent over the past five years, and from more than 26million in 1987 to less than five million this year.
Watching Corrie used to feel like eavesdropping on a couple of outrageous old matriarchs on the bus and wishing you could be part of their Hell’s Grannies gang.
Now it’s like sitting in a doctor’s waiting room without a book, losing the will to live as you plough through public health pamphlets, or like accidentally walking into a local council workshop on inclusivity.
And I hate seeing this invasion of the Corrie-snatchers ruining what could — for once, even considering how the phrase is overused — justifiably be called a national treasure.
Street’s stories are so right-on
WRITERS have catapulted Corrie into the woke era with a spate of right-on and hard-hitting storylines.
Last month pregnant teen Summer Spellman toyed with having an abortion, but instead is set to sell her baby to childless couple Esther and Mike.
In June, Maria Connor was horrified when someone used her face in a deepfake X-rated video.
Hairdresser turned local councillor Maria Connor has received death threats on a social media post about refugees.
Could it be one-time opponent Bernard Barnes, who earlier this year was foiled by Maria for trying to suppress a report on air pollution?
Tim and Sally were visiting a relaxation coach as he was suffering from erectile dysfunction – and then healthcare worker Aggie decided he had developed a sex phobia after going through major surgery.
In June, unemployed Leo started making hipster homebrew.
To cheer him up, Daisy made his concoction a guest ale at the Rovers.
Toyah Battersby bumped into old flame Spider when she staged a protest against burning recycling after the Weatherfield bin strikes.
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But Spider was soon arrested for taking part in a protest against fracking.
Troubled teen Max Turner is set to be radicalised by far-right eco-campaigners – with gang leader Griff taking him to a racist concert – while Spider has gone undercover for the police to infiltrate the campaigners.
