Coronation Street has given Roy Cropper, Emily Bishop and newcomer Yasmeen Nazir a chance to shine in recent days as they have teamed up to save Weatherfield's local library.
In our latest Soap Spy column, here Daniel Martin shares his thoughts on why this plot is currently standing out as a soap highlight.
Journalists and TV folk often talk darkly about a 'summer slump' in the land of soap. The time where everybody expects ratings to be down because everyone's out in the sun - this year in particular as we're actually getting a summer.
People rarely bother with their biggest storylines, saving all the whammies for the autumn months when the nights will draw in. You might remember a week in EastEnders last year dedicated to little more than who had taken Dot's cold cuts from out of the fridge.
And yet, and yet… sometimes, the summer slump is when soaps can show themselves from their best angles. Take Corrie. We all know it's been a massive year in Weatherfield, what with the BAFTA-worthy heartbreak of Hayley's death, and the awkward spectacle over Tina's, of which we will speak no more. Now, with Peter languishing in jail as part of the annual wrongful imprisonment clause, we're given a bit of time off from the gloom (Windass woe notwithstanding, but really, who cares about them?).
And in its own small way, we're getting a storyline that shows Corrie at its best. And that is by foregrounding the oddball and pensioner division. While the big romantic story at the moment is of That Dennis trying to worm his way back into Rita's bosom, there are higher stakes still at play. I speak of course of the battle to save Weatherfield Community Library.
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Proving herself to be Weatherfield's fairy godconscience even in death, Hayley had neglected to return a self-help book, sparking a chain of events that led to Roy discovering that the library was to be the next casualty of Cameron's Britain. In Hayley's memory, Roy cannot let this slide, and at his side he has a formidable ally in the shape of librarian Yasmeen Nazir.
Yasmeen is already my favourite character. Ever since Gloria sped off in that sports car like the budget Faye Dunaway we all adored her for being, the Street has been missing a meddlesome older lady who speaks as she finds. One would say 'battleaxe' except for fear of being sexist, /except/ that Coronation Street was founded upon them.
It's close to sacrilege to even speak of a Blanche-in-waiting, but there can be no greater compliment, and I have a feeling that Yasmeen could be a worthy candidate. Here is a woman who actively enjoys lashing out her tongue like an agitated tree frog at younger women who are no better than they ought to be.
And she isn't going to stand for her stud-offspring Kal being saddled with a coke-addled, mid-table arsonist-prostitute like Leanne. She isn't to know that the soap gods have decreed Leanne to now be a Debenhams Earth Mother with a self-righteous moral imperative to rival her own. I can see them becoming great friends.
Yes, Yasmeen is still feeling her way. Tonight she makes the fool's mistake of underestimating Emily Bishop's capacity for civil disobedience, the pensioner who once spent the night up a tree in the cause of sticking it to The Man. Emily is not the sort of woman to let an injustice slip by on her watch, and can be relied upon to fight austerity one bake-sale at a time.
Roy, by his nature, is cautious, but Yasmeen has little truck with his petition, indulging his whimsy by patting him on the head and letting him get on with it like a good boy while plotting a High-Noon-At-Bessy-Street-style occupation of the building. The only thing stopping her from egging local authority officials so far is the confiscating hand of her husband Sharif, a character infinitely better served as a long-suffering Steve McDonald type rather than the fearsome patriarch they initially tried to paint him as.
Yes, the battle for Weatherfield Community Library is going to get ugly, and Yasmeen can stay. I, on the other hand, cannot. I'm away to do something a bit different that means I won't be able to do this anymore, and so this will be my final Soap Spy. It's been magnificent, and you're going to be in safe hands with whoever comes next, my pretties.
Praise be to Blanche.
