Corrie Vs EastEnders

posted: 27 March 2007 Jim Butler

As EastEnders and Coronation Street continue to scrap it out in the ratings war, we find a clear cut winner in the battle of the soaps.

If there is one moment that could be said to sum up the present gulf between Coronation Street and EastEnders - a gulf that's been widening by the episode for the best part of a decade - it was delivered by Corrie's rent-a-gossip, Blanche last night (Mar 26).

Perched in the gallery awaiting her granddaughter Tracey's murder trial (she bumped off her bed-hopping boyfriend Charlie Stubbs in the most scheming and manipulative fashion), Blanche, who, it transpires, knows a thing or two about courts and their practices (when bored she pops along to while away the day), delivered a glorious one-line assessment of the legal profession, much to the bemusement of sweet old Emily and hapless Steve McDonald.

'People in wigs twist things,' she noted. 'Ask Danny La Rue.'

And there in that one sentence was proof of Corrie's effortless ascendancy: hilarious, concise, slightly camp - reflecting the Street's oft panto-like affectations - and uttered in magical deadpan fashion by an actress (Maggie Jones) worth her weight in any number of airbrushed stage school wannabes that seem to clog up the Queen Vic.

On the other side, the best EastEnders could muster was placing Stacey Slater in the most un-erotic stockings and suspenders get-up, with which to lure the singularly unappealing Max into some sort of tawdry coupling in the latter's front room, while his daughter does her school project in the kitchen (even EastEnders managed to balls up this most promising of scenarios!).

Stacey used to be an alluring and potentially great character - a complex lass with familial issues. Now she's just that age-old soap cliché: a tart-with-a-heart. Her descent mirrors that of EastEnders.

In short, the writers on Coronation Street urinate from a great height upon their counterparts over on Albert Square. Corrie, while not immune to its own stereotypes - for instance the newly arrived Morton family seem to be no more than a poor facsimile of the entertaining Battersby's - is funnier, more inclusive, more hard-hitting and more heart-warming than anything emanating from the dreary and depressing environs of E20.

We were told that EastEnders' nadir had been reached a couple of years ago when it seemed to lurch from one crisis to another - haemorrhaging bosses being clear evidence of a lack of direction. Not true. As it stands, the BBC's flagship soap could be about to face its greatest test to date: overcoming its own irrelevance.

In the Rover's Return, meanwhile, Betty's Hot Pots are still doing a roaring trade.

Jim Butler - In 1996 Jim thought all his Christmases had come at once when Eric Cantona called him ‘mate’. Ten years later he met four-fifths of Girls Aloud. He still can’t decide which event excites him more. In the meantime he whiles away the working day writing and devising content for Channel 4’s mobile portal.