Friday, November 19, 2010

A New Twist On Laying The Table

There is only one reason any soap introduces a new drinking venue, and it has nothing to do with providing the locals with somewhere a bit more upmarket than the local pub.

No, it is purely because a new venue provides a Back Room, and that BR quickly becomes the place where new sexual action takes place.

You wouldn’t want to touch any of the furniture in the BR – allegedly “the office” - of EastEnders’ R & R, for instance. How many trysts have taken place across the desk, up against the wall, against the door?

Janine even managed to handcuff Jack to a radiator in there – an event guaranteed to appeal to viewers such as myself, for whom being alone with Jack and a pair of handcuffs in any room would be a more than a fair cop.

Now, Coronation Street has installed The Joinery, a fancy new wine bar being run by Nick and Leanne, who have taken the joinery aspect of the name a little too literally. On the opening night, they christened the furniture, and next week the BR provides even more opportunities for their illicit affair.

Who has the awful job of cleaning up after these people, for whom pub furniture is such a turn-on? And at the rate Nick and Leanne are going at it, it’s not just a cleaner they’ll need to tidy the place up, but a joiner – which, under the new banner, might be an appropriate call.

It’s easy to see why Leanne might prefer Nick to Peter, though. Peter’s an alcoholic with a bad taste in overcoats, his black one clearly so heavy it causes him to stoop, a literal weight on his shoulders; on a dark night, you could be mistaken for thinking you had bumped into the Hunchback of Notre Dame on the cobbles.

True, he has a very cute son in Simon, but the boy is never going to win Child of the Year in the entertainment stakes. How could he, when the sum total of his playtime in the past year has been kicking the occasional ball around the Red Rec?

Nick is the better bet in terms of earning potential, although with all that frowning, I suspect Leanne has to take an iron to his forehead, purely in order to make his face kissable.

Carla giving him grief? One line frown. Hoping to have sex with Leanne? Two. Leanne giving him the brush-off after a night of passion? T’s a veritable Clapham Junction passing through his brow. When the sun is out and he has to squint as well as frown, there is so much frowning action going on, his face shrinks to a shrivelled tangerine. There will doubtless be a lot more frowning in the coming weeks, when Leanne decides which man she prefers.

Carla, meanwhile, is waiting in the wings for Peter, but with two dead husbands under her belt, I suspect he’ll be taking up refuge in that overcoat a little more often.

It’s a complicated love pool on the Street at the moment, with Molly still pursuing Kevin, whom she prefers to Tyrone. To be honest, to me all she’s doing is switching cabins on the Titanic, but each to her own.

Meanwhile, in Albert Square, sexual activity is about to move out of the back room and into other venues, including Phil’s car.

At least it takes the pressure off the poor old furniture for a change.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Full Moon Over Walford - Again

Another full moon over Albert Square tonight.

Sorry, but there isn’t one outside my window. Not even close. The wind is howling, the rain falling, and there is nothing but black, illuminated by the occasional firework.

Yes, I know that the show is filmed in advance, but Walford has more full moons than the man who lives in it. The scriptwriter or producer who came up with giving Alfie (Shane Richie) the surname Moon has a lot to answer for, because every time the character enjoys an over-emotional moment, out it comes.

And there it was again tonight, as Alfie went down on one knee to Kat (Jessie Wallace), the woman who already is his wife. Great, she must have thought, another cheap, disgusting ring, and, Oh no, here comes the full moon to illuminate just how cheap and nasty it really is.

“By the light of my pal up there, the moon . . . “ Alfie began. Did he really have to tell us who his pal was? It was never going to be “By the light of my pal the South East Electricity Board, was it?” – or whatever extortionate service now serves the East End (having said that, with the light and power generated from these full moons, who needs a supply anyway)?

By now, Alfie was gazing up adoringly (cue moon lighting), holding out the box to his lady dressed in purple and gold, her pregnant belly silhouetted against the night sky like a . . . well, a big purple full moon, really, which, if Alfie had been the father, would have been quite apt – she’d be full of Moon, geddit?

In fact, so enormous was her purpleness, she could have passed for the Big Purple One in Goliath’s Quality Street box.
She agreed to give the relationship another go, while acknowledging the difficulties they were likely to face. You’re telling me – not least, from her tongue.

Good grief. Did you see it lunge forward as they moved in for the kiss? It didn’t so much enter Alfie's mouth as try to excavate it, as if it was diving into a litre carton of Haagen Dazs on the assumption it was never likely to meet another ice-cream this side of 2011.

And, once it was in there, it kept scooping and scooping. I was trying to eat my supper of spaghetti Bolognese and had to put it aside until Question Time, when I will hopefully not be feeling quite so nauseous.
Let’s hope the show puts that moon away for a while now, even though, in real life, there’s a New Moon due on Saturday night.

It has to be a new one, presumably, because EastEnders has nicked all the old ones.

Friday, October 22, 2010

Jaci's Soap Box - Introduction: Top Totty

For fans of my Daily Mail Soapwatch column, published in the Weekend Magazine on Saturdays, this blog will be an extension of the stories featured there. I'll be talking about plots, characters - who's hot and who's not - and sharing inside information about your favourite shows, both in the UK and further afield.

So, as an introduction, here is my current selection of the hottest males in soap. Feel free to agree or disagree, and welcome to my blog, http://jacinthesoapbox.blogspot.com.

TOP TOTTY (MALE)

1. JACK BRANNING (Scott Maslen), EASTENDERS

Only recently released from his wheelchair after being shot, ex-copper Jack specialises in impregnating girls with the surname Mitchell. So far, he has clocked up Roxy, Sam and Ronnie. It can surely be only a matter of time before Peggy returns, upon discovering that she, too, has been blessed with Jack’s DNA.

MOST LIKELY TO SAY: ‘I hope you’ve got a key for these handcuffs.’

LEAST LIKELY TO SAY: ‘I think I’d rather wait until we’re married.’

2. CAIN DINGLE (Jeff Hordley), EMMERDALE

By far and away, soap’s most convincing BOR (Bit Of Rough). Very fond of bedding pretty maidens and kidnapping unpleasant males. Looks as if he hasn’t washed his clothes in a decade (ditto most of the Dingle clan from whence he sprang), but as he is out of them more often than he is in them, it barely matters.

MOST LIKELY TO SAY: ‘Sleep with me or I’ll shoot you.’

LEAST LIKELY TO SAY: ‘Has anyone seen my copy of Wuthering Heights?’

3. KARL KENNEDY (Alan Fletcher), NEIGHBOURS

Doctor, singer, sensitive husband and father, Karl is more of a BOAR (Bit Of All Right) than a BOR. Tall, dark and handsome, he cheated on wife Susan twice before divorcing and then re-marrying. They have been dubbed the friskiest couple on Ramsay Street and have been caught in the nude together on three occasions. It’s not Sex and the City, but he clearly gives a Castlemaine XXXX for his other half.

MOST LIKELY TO SAY: ‘Why couldn’t I have had just ONE normal kid?’

LEAST LIKELY TO SAY: ‘Someone wants to pay me ten grand to sing.’

4. GRAEME PROCTOR (Craig Gazey), CORONATION STREET

Graeme’s humour is central to his sex appeal, and after dating psycho David, Tina is glad of the light relief. Graeme may have served time in the young offenders’ institution with David, but he has turned into a man of stature and sensitivity, adding butchering (animals, not people), window-cleaning and general odd-jobbing to his list of skills, which clearly extend to his love-making, too.

MOST LIKELY TO SAY: ‘I worry about the size of my chippolata.’

LEAST LIKELY SAY: ‘Fancy a nice bit of rump?’

5. TONY HUTCHINSON (Nick Pickard), HOLLYOAKS

If it stands still for long enough, the chances are that Tony will bed it, which is why he never has any time to go to the Cash and Carry to buy any vegetables for the poorly stocked restaurant, let alone find time to cook them. A handsome, sexy boy, he is still unlucky in love, which seems fair punishment in return for customers being unlucky in ever getting their ordered meals on the table.

MOST LIKELY TO SAY: ‘I can show you a much better use for that whipped cream.’

LEAST LIKELY TO SAY: ‘I have three Michelin stars.’