My Nerdy Annoyance

Bit of a peculiar title for this one but it’s something my friends all say I’m a ‘nerd’ for this thing annoying me so much.

What it is is, this thing is something I love but there are little things about it that just bug me.

Anyone reading this from England will most likely of heard of Coronation Street? Well if not, it’s a soap about the lives of the working class on a back street in Manchester, and I LOVE IT!!!
Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, my mum and I look forward to it all day, it honestly makes my days a little better knowing that I can go home after work and, much to my dad’s dismay, catch up on the imaginary lives of the Platts, O’Conners, Grimshaw’s and all the other families that live on the street.

We love it that much that with my first job, I bought us both tickets to go to the tour!

My Mother and I loving life on the cobbles in 2014.

So yes, I’m a big fan, some people may laugh at the thought of a 19 year old girl being so into a soap that their grandparents watch but I don’t even care, I’m not ashamed in the slightest.

There was a point where I had planned out a character and full storyline of how this character would come onto the street and what they would do, I was all ready to send it to the Corrie bosses and put myself forward to be her but then they brought her back anyway! Bethany Platt I’m talking about you!
Side Note: I’m glad that never happened, I would never have been able to pull off the character of Bethany as well as Lucy Fallon!! Her and Sarah were the best match for mother and daughter!!

All my time through college completing my performing arts course I dreamed of being a cast member of my favourite TV show, I still do… A girl can dream hey.

 

Anyway, enough about how much I love it… time to get to the real reason I’m writing this blog.

I follow the Corrie page on Facebook and every post I see, there’s at least one person commenting ‘I HATE PAT PHELAN’. I’m quite frankly bored of it.

So this is going back a bit, back to when he first came back onto the street and when he watched Michael die without doing anything (pretty much murder). Yes, I wanted him to go too, but you have to admit, he makes good TV.

The thing that annoys me the most about it is that people were complaining that he was still on the show, telling the writers that they should kill him off already. Does nobody realise that with a show like this, the episodes are written around 6-9 months before we actually watch it? This isn’t a guess… it’s a fact! (I emailed the bosses FYI).

So when people are complaining, there isn’t really much the writers can do, these episodes we’re watching now were filmed so long ago, they can’t just cut in and change them.

Another thing is people commenting saying things like ‘I have watched corrie all my life but now I don’t, it is ruined now’.
I can understand that the past few months have been a little sad with Michelle Losing the baby, the Grooming storyline with Bethany, Toyah not being able to conceive etc but these kind of storylines are done for a reason. When each episode finishes, listen to the end where they say “if anyone has been affected by issues seen in today’s episode, go to the ITV website to find out who to speak to for help and guidance” or something along those lines. They aren’t doing episodes like this to make everyone cry or to make the show ‘depressing’, they’re doing it to raise awareness!!

The grooming storyline was on at the same time as the drama documentary Three Girls which was aired earlier this year. This was based on a true story, in Manchester may I add, in which so many young girls were affected. And just like Bethany and Lara, none of those girls wanted to come forward because they had been fed all these lies about what would happen to them if they told anybody.

Now just imagine this. You’re sat watching Coronation Street with your 14 year old daughter, she watches everything that Nathan put Bethany through and she realises that this is what happened to her, this is what she went through that she, just like Bethany, thought was okay! This could encourage your daughter to finally realise that it’s wrong and come forward about it happening.

We need shows like this with storylines raising awareness, to help victims, help people who don’t feel like they can turn to anybody about what they’re going/been through, help them to see that it’s not just them this is happening too and they’re are people out there who can understand and will be more than happy to talk to them about it and give them the guidance they need.

So all you out there who just post negative comments about how sad it is or how much you hate a particular character, just think, this could be changing someone’s life, it could be helping to bring light to someone who has witnessed this kind of behaviour and encourage them to do something about it.

I cannot commend Coronation Street enough, and Three Girls and every other programme or soap out there that shines light on taboo subjects, and gives vulnerable people the courage to speak out. If you don’t want to watch it, then don’t! Nobody is forcing you to sit in front of your TV and watch this particular programme. But just remember, the more storylines like this, the more people they can help.