TV Review

Published Tuesday 15 April 2008 at 11:40 by Michael Quinn

Who’s safe in Coronation Street at the moment? I don’t mean from diddy David Platt, Public Enemy Number 1 (that’s his criminal ranking not his height in metres) or Weatherfield’s new eminence gris, ragman turned property developer Tony Gordon, or even - Flee, flee for the hills! - from the unrealised desires of the unhappy (and clearly unsatisfied) Liz McDonald, all molten and ready to blow like Vesuvius in a slow but scorching burn.

Even more worrying than waiting for Liz to erupt is waiting for the new flats (currently beginning to break the skyline) to be completed - and with them, the prospect of an unprecedented influx of new characters into the street of tsunami proportions. And probably just as destructive. Not even roosting bats, it seems, can stop the builders.

The residents of Coronation Street have never been that comfortable with change, as the recent ham-fisted refurbishment of the Rovers Return proved by turning an already dingy pub into an even shabbier Stygian hole. Which begs the question why no-one (yes, you Ken and you Norris) has voiced a single concern about the condominium currently looming above the cobbles. Don’t these people realise that new flats mean new characters and that new characters only have one purpose - the wreaking of untold havoc on the existing population.

Hopes that the building might be delayed when evidence of nesting bats was found were spurred on by Roy Cropper leaping to the defence of our pug-nosed, fang-toothed, leathery-skinned friends (who should, on no account, be confused with Blanche and Betty) only to find they have mysteriously fled the coop - just hours before the bat inspector calls.

All of which has inflamed an exercised Roy to take matters into his own hands with the help of unlikely cohorts Becky and Ken, and a gleaming, preserved-in-amber Morris Minor Traveller. Can we please have a spin-off with these three tackling the miscellaneous perils of thoughtless parking, litter louts and returning money accidentally left in public phone boxes at the end of a short call to its rightful owner?

Any storyline driven along by Roy in a state of high moral outrage always promises to deliver classic Corrie moments and in characteristically subtle fashion actor David Neilson delivered in a beautifully paced account of Cropper’s mounting fury. Who else could have chilled the bones and stiffened resolve with the steely alarum call of “Turn the sign to ‘closed’, Becky”. Let battle commence.

Meanwhile, The Complainers, Dom Joly’s new jolly japes series for Five, returns to the tried-and-tested Candid Camera formula to simply tedious effect. Meandering and meaningless, the show didn’t seem to know whether it was supposed to be silly or serious in its attempts to undermine petty officialdom and expose crass stupidity. In the event, it was just puerile.

If Joly really wants to position himself as a new consumers’ champion, he’s going to have to do a lot better than this slapdash nonsense.

It was time warp stuff delivered with obvious disregard for the point or purpose of tackling rampant car clampers, Big Brother CCTV in sleepy seaside hamlets or the abject gullibility of shoppers ready to throw industrial quantities of “Diet Donuts” down their gullets when told they’re a slimming aid.

When the ad break came half an hour in, I was already too numb to switch over, so imagine the horror of the revelation as the end credits rolled that this damp squib of a programme was the opener for an entire series. Once I’m free of my stupor I’m going to find my heirloom copies of That’s Life! To remind myself how it should be done. Esther, it’s over to you.

DETAILS

Coronation Street ITV, Monday, April 14, 7.30pm and 8.30pm

Dom Joly’s The Complainers Five, Monday, April 14, 10pm