Last updated at 11:43, Saturday, 15 May 2010

There's never been a soap funeral without a spot of bother. And few soaps do bits of bother quite so well as Corrie.

It was bye-bye Blanche time this week. Having passed away peacefully in her sleep in a Portuguese idyll she had made her surprising love nest, the dear old thing had shaken Coronation Street (ITV1) to the very foundations of its wet cobbles.

A love affair? Blanche? And she such a cantankerous old she-devil?

By ‘eck – whatever next?

Nice touch though. To give Deidre’s difficult dowager a romantic interlude, before she passed into the reluctant arms of groaning angels, was really quite sweet... unlike her funeral.

Eulogising was clearly not Deidre’s strongest suit, so she told the truth.

Why more don’t do that at funerals is a mystery to me. There’s a lot of love and affection in admission of hatred.

And then the terrible Tracy dropped by, handcuffed to a prison officer, spitting vile curses at Steve and Becky for parenting her little Amy while she did time for murder.

Blanche would have loved it all. She’d have revelled in Tracy’s venomous fury, been chuffed with Deidre’s gift of freesias – though she’d have been happier with a bigger, more expensive bunch – and would have adored the wide-eyed wonder of her friends, taken aback by her having found a lover.

Oddly enough, while loving the bones of all Corrie’s residents, it’s at times like these (funerals) when they’re all together, falling out and backbiting about whether or not Roy’s cafe should have been closed in respect, I start to wonder.

If by some stroke of soap-magic misfortune, I woke one day to find they were my new neighbours, would I still love their bones or move out?

You’re right. I would.

First published at 09:06, Saturday, 15 May 2010
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk