Brian Sewell’s horde of Corrie homosexuals by Tim Ward

You know what a key element of soap operas, or indeed any drama, is? It isn’t real. The characters in the show can act and feel and do pretty much anything the writers decide.

To this end, although the characters in, say, hotpot-soaked Coronation Street, are ‘real’ in that they’re human and the show isn’t sci-fi, they aren’t necessarily meant to be representative of the 60 million people who live in the UK.

This is something Brian Sewell fails to grasp in his Daily Mail column.

What HAVE they done to Corrie?

Is it true that the lives of heterosexual Mancunians are haplessly intertwined with transvestites, transsexuals, teenage lesbians and a horde of homosexuals across the age range

Haplessly? Hordes? Sorry, is it the 1950s? I would imagine that as Manchester is one of the most culturally diverse cities in the UK, with a big gay scene (I’m told), that Mancunians may well work or know at least one homosexual. But let’s see what Plums on a Silver Spoon Voice Sewell is going on about.

For fully half a century, Coronation Street has formed the nation’s view of Lancashire

What? Really? Is that how people from outside of Manchester get their opinions of other cities? The Newcastle tourist board must be suicidal after Geordie Shore.

houses were back-to-back, the bathroom was the kitchen sink and the lavatory was a lean-to outhouse in the yard. It seemed realistic to me.

OK, Bry, we get it – you think the north is shithole.

Today, all the characters are showered, prinked and perfumed — particularly the men. Every hair is in place, every eyelash twice normal length, the cosmetics thick as plaster masks (only the ginger boy has spots) and the clothes are straight from Primark, Next and Topshop.

Yes Brian. Or, you know, they’re actors wearing makeup? You know, playing a role that requires a certain look? I also can’t remember seeing Ken Barlow with fake eyelashes.

This Coronation Street is not good old grubby Lancashire, but just a turning away from Footballers’ Wives — a fantasy world of a working class with money to burn. Is this really the Lancashire of now, the new truth about the sturdy North? Are these well-washed denizens of the Street really the ordinary people there, leading their ordinary lives?

No Brian, they aren’t. They’re characters in an entertainment show. If they had ‘ordinary lives’ it would tediously boring, with the only excitement of this terraced-house street being a dog licking it’s balls, that bees nest that was on the lamppost and the occasional mattress appearing in the street.

Among the main cast, we have lesbian teenagers Sophie Webster and her girlfriend Sian Powers — whose relationship was revealed when they were caught in flagrante by Sophie’s mum Sally. 

There’s also homosexual Sean Tully, the part-time barman in the Rovers Return, who is set to tie the knot with boyfriend Marcus Dent later this year in what will be the show’s first civil partnership. 

And middle-aged cross-dresser Marc Selby, who was involved in a love triangle with hairdresser Audrey Roberts and her glamorous friend Claudia Colby. And factory worker Hayley Cropper, who became the first transsexual in a British soap when she appeared on screens in 1998.

OK, so among the main cast… four homosexuals. Marc is just a guy in a dress, but straight, and Hayley has been in the show for 13 years. It’s hardly a pandemic. Four characters in 61 regular cast members – less than the 10%, which is the national average for how many people are gay.

There are also countless peripheral gay characters. Ted Paige, the father of long-suffering Gail Platt, revealed he was gay [hasn’t appeared since January 2010], while Ken Barlow’s long-lost grandson James, who appeared in the show last year, also turned out to be homosexual — much to the distress of James’s homophobic father Lawrence.

Clean-cut Todd Grimshaw, who cheated on his pregnant girlfriend Sarah Platt with a man in one of the soap’s most watched storylines, also pops up from time to time. [That “time to time” would be twice in four years]

So, the “domination” of the soap is four regular characters, and two characters who have barely appeared since 2007. The storylines are apparently “dominated by gay men”. I don’t want to go into every storyline from the last year or so, but I am pretty sure I’m safe to say storylines revolving specifically around a character’s sexuality would be in the minority. Or was it a gay tram that smashed up the place last Christmas? “Ding, ding! All abroad the pink line!”

It is not just Coronation Street — EastEnders is at it, too, with, last month, boys in bed together, apparently naked.

The dear old egalitarian BBC protested that its policy is  to portray gay and hetero- sexual relationships in  exactly the same way, both equally suitable for pre-watershed viewing. But are they equally suitable? 

Are soaps, watched by pre-pubescent children — who may still have some tattered remnant of innocence that we should cherish — really a proper platform for sexual propaganda and special pleading? 

“Sexual propaganda”? Really? Or it could just be that storylines are interesting? That if every character was straight and led normal lives the show would be pisspoor with people resorting to just peering out of their living room windows – as it will probably be just as exciting.

Coronation Street is not a real back street in Salford, and all its characters are as fictional as James Bond and Mary Poppins, if not quite so convincing.

Why not bring in not just cross-dressers, but those who subscribe to leather fetishism, bondage and flagellation? They exist. But if this is to be the case, then we must address the issue of the watershed. 

Can someone point out the Brian that there is a strong difference between showing gay characters and getting the characters into assless-chaps, gimp masks and constant references to safe words?

He’s happy to point out that it isn’t real. Well observed. Coronation Street is a pretty small, terraced street in Manchester. Despite only having about 16 houses, there has been 134 deaths since it began some 50 years ago. Nearly three deaths a year. There has been 14 murders.  29 poor sods have copped it because of being run-over or being hit by a tram… Quite how any gets up enough speed on the cobbles to kill someone is beyond.

The Street is pretty small, but despite this it also features two corner shops, a factory, a garage, a nightclub, a pub, a hairdressers, a doctors, a fast food joint, a cafe, a taxi firm and a bookies.  Seems a little excessive. Perhaps Brian also believes that every street in greater Manchester is also bustling with a range of businesses, entrepreneurs and murders as well as ‘gays’.

Comments

1. michel says:

   July 16, 2011 at 11:31 pm

   and then we have coronation street ‘actor’ Andrew Lancel allegedly saying there are ‘too many gays’ in the show (Daily Mirror)whilst speaking at a private function yet counts Antony Cotton and Charlie Condou amongst his friends. He denies saying this but if you look at the article you will see he’s quoted which implies someone possibly recorded him. The statement in itself is just an opinion but for him to deny it implies he’s regretting saying it…allegedly. I remember he was told off on twitter by the father of a female waiter who served Lancel at aintree because of the way Lancel spoke to her. He denied that too. Being on television really makes people even more full of themselves than they were before and I find the self praising,self important ones who are actually wooden actors are the ones with the hugest egos,schmoozing and sucking up to those they believe influential whilst turning their noses up at those who aren’t. As for Lancels corrie character Frank Foster,what purpose does he serve in the show,where can it go,it’s a one dimensional character,played exactly how he played Neil Manson in the bill.Monosyllabic,staid,stiff and wooden. No wonder corrie is currently failing and losing viewrs in droves.
2. Lorraine says:

   July 21, 2011 at 12:56 pm

   It’s always interesting to me that the outcry is supposedly all about ‘pre-watershed’ and ‘innocent children’. People being gay isn’t ok for those innocent kids but murder, incest and rape? Absolutely fine, nothing to worry about. How do these people reconcile that in their heads?

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