SOME have statues erected in their honour, others lend names to libraries. When society truly wants to post its admiration for someone or something it puts them on a stamp. Hence the release of a book of stamps to mark Coronation Street’s 60th birthday.
The stamps, available from the end of May, feature the street’s favourite double acts and their sayings. There’s the classic line from Stan and Hilda’s second honeymoon when he wonders, after a kiss, what her lipstick tastes of. “Woman, Stanley, woman,” says Hilda.
The stamps are a reminder that Coronation Street (STV, Monday, Wednesday, Friday) is never better than when it is funny. No other soap has provided as many zingers down the years. EastEnders’ idea of a jape is giving a character an addiction rather than straight out murdering them.
Of late, the Yasmeen-Geoff coercive control storyline has made the show tough viewing. Now poor Yasmeen has followed many another Corry woman and is locked up in Weatherfield jail. The story took too long to play out, and there is a danger of dragging out the denouement. Nor do I like the way the Steve-Leanne-Olly story is developing.
Just when you thought Corry could not get any more miserable, it pulls something magical out of the air. On Monday it was Gail and Audrey getting sloshed at the former’s birthday do. Audrey wondered whether Yasmeen might drop by.
“Yasmeen’s facing an attempted murder charge!” said Gail. “Oh yeah,” recalled Audrey. “I knew she had summat on.” Bless you, Corry.
I thought there would be more hard to handle viewing in Hospital Special: Fighting Covid-19 (BBC2, Monday, Tuesday). Sure enough, there was stress and heartbreak at The Royal Free in London as the pandemic hit.
It was all here: the tsunami of cases, the shortages of equipment, the wicked nature of the disease, tricking people into thinking they were better only to strike again. It was terrifying, so much so that if it had been shown before Sunday, when Boris Johnson eased the lockdown in England, the government might have had to rethink. After watching this the last thing anyone would have wanted to do was rush out into the world again.
Yet this was also a showcase for love and kindness and determination and inventiveness, and all those other wonderful things of which humans are capable. One patient, Nancy, was a nurse. She had a breathing tube stuck in her throat and needed an op to have it removed. She finally recovered and left to an honour guard of applauding colleagues.
Her speech of thanks, given in a soft, still strained voice, was the best I’ve heard from anyone about this crisis, and the good it has brought out in people. “I am proud to be a nurse,” said Nancy.
We tend to ration reviews of Sky programmes in these parts because not everyone has the service and, well, we’re cooncil telly types at heart, but I must recommend Code 404 (Sky 1, Wednesday, above). It stars Daniel Mays as a shot and brought back to life gormless robocop of the future, Anna Maxwell Martin as his wife, and Stephen Graham as his police partner. All three have appeared in Line of Duty playing terribly serious types. Code 404 finds them in polar opposite mode. It’s a hoot.
If you long for half an hour of sheer silliness, head this way. Graham and Mays are not quite the new Eric and Ernie but they can stand to share the same sentence. Graham is particularly good. I haven’t seen deadpanning of that standard since Robert De Niro in Midnight Run.
This week there was a reference to Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), a double act that Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer tried to resurrect without success. Now Graham and Mays, on the other hand ...
Return to Real Kashmir FC (BBC Scotland, Tuesday) caught up with ex-Rangers and Aberdeen player Davie Robertson as he began another run as manager of the titular club. If anything the situation in the region had become more chaotic, with Robertson’s arrival coinciding with the Indian government abolishing Kashmir’s devolved parliament.
The one element that had not changed was Robertson, thankfully. His swearing remained spectacular, almost Malcolm Tuckeresque. It was a brave journalist who asked in a post match press conference why the team had not been up to the mark (“Are you seriously asking me that question? Are you having a laugh?”).
But who was he kidding with the hard man act? Whether it was during one of his ten times a day calls to his wife, or hugging a Kashmiri player who was worried about his family far away, Robertson was a humongous softie. Wherever he hangs his hat he will always be a typical Scotsman.
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