Grant and Tiffany, the match made among the bickering and sniping of a humourless, hellish East End pub, are now history. Nothing surprising about that; the surprise is that it took so long to happen, and that it was possible to create a degree of tension around what presumably will be the final bust-up between thuggish Grant and Tiffany, pathetically determined to escape his psychopathic tyranny and make a new life for herself ("I'm going to do that poxy massage course no matter what you say").
In keeping with the re-styled opening credits for EastEnders - with the names of the director, producer and writers appearing with the opening title music - the shots (no, there have been no gun battles on Albert Square, recently) have attempted to be more stylish - lots of wide angles and scenes shot from above or below. Same old miserable characters, though. Some of it was even filmed in Paris for the World Cup, in an uncharacteristic attempt, also made by Corrie, to acknowledge and incorporate what was going on in the real world. (Coronation Street somewhat blew its cover by having scenes of t'lads in t'Rovers watching the final on big screen well before the kick-off in real life. Still. They tried.)
Anyway, the recent EastEnders plots have focused mostly on the antagonism between the old (and Grant has been feeling his age recently) brothers, the Mitchells, and the recent Italian imports, the just blown-in spaghetti twins, Beppe and Gianni (who sound like a jeans label and a dead frock designer). Grant has lost his wife (his brother, whispering Phil, lost his a few months ago - careless chaps, really) and the Eye-ties, as they're called (with great originality) have lost their cat. Well, their mother lost hers, or maybe she has found it by now, in a storyline that dragged on as a background to Beppe's flirting with Tiff.
We may have seen the last of scenes like Grant getting his old army uniform out of the wardrobe and staring dolefully at it like a sad git whose life's highspot was the Falklands War, but the Tiffany and Grant saga is set to drag on for some time to come. According to leaks in the tabloids about the Christmas episodes - and it's only July, even if sometimes it feels like November - Grant's neanderthal, inarticulate anger is going to spill over into full-blown madness and he will murder Tiffany in a bid to up the seasonal ratings.
EastEnders has always been keen on gritty social issues and, unfortunately, it's far from unrealistic as a depiction of violent relationships, but it sounds like a rotten end for poor old Tiff, who has come a long way from the arrogant goodtime gal who started out as an occasionally-seen pal of Bianca's, and was shaping up to become a fine soapy matriarch.
The two welcome recent appearances on EastEnders are (a) ageing spiv Frank, who is back complete with jaunty little hat and shark-like grin and is set to stir the heart of bottle-blonde-pub-landlady Peggy Mitchell, and stir it up for ex-wife Pat and her current husband Roy, by buying Roy's old business; and (b) the odd morsel of humour, sadly missing in the East End, on account of Corrie having bagged an unfair share. "What'll we get Grant" (or as his mammy Peggy, with Barbara Windsor's slight speech impediment, calls him, "Gwarnt") "for his birthday?" they wonder over the Queen Vic bar. "A toupe." (Well, they tried too.) Another marriage that looks shaky, and not for the first time by any means, is Sally and Kevin's in Coronation Street. She has just had a bit of hanky panky with official Street hunk Greg, having previously had a fling with the previous occupier of that position, Chris the mechanic. The new beefcake barman didn't last long enough for her to have her wicked way with him, too. As the man in the Kit Kat ad (who now lives in Albert Square, pretending to be Tiffany's Dad) might have said of him: "Can't sing, can't dance, can't act." He looked alright, all the same.
Yet another break-up is happening on Fair City with Nahalie and Hughie at loggerheads over his infidelity - and we haven't even seen him for many a month, seeing as he's off on a cruise (handy device, that, a "cruise"; Alec in Corrie - Roy Barraclough, who plays him, is a well-known "dame" in the north of England - is always on a "cruise" at panto-time).
Nahalie's boss Kay (she who owns the pub and has taken up with Malachy, former mission priest, now in the missionary position) has decided that enough is enough where her step-daughter Noeleen is involved. Noeleen, whose penchant for personality change would put Jekyll and Hyde to shame, has taken up with an unlikely cult, whose smarmy leader she is marrying. He believes her son should be roundly disciplined, so Kay has called in what used to be quaintly called "the cruelty". Actually, the woman was a health board social worker, reacting with amazing speed by dropping in to check things out when Kay had barely put the phone down.
Meanwhile, would-be local politico Dermot is not the dull eejit he's painted and seems to be the only one to have copped on to the existence of a brothel in the closeknit northside suburb. What he does with the information might be a bit of fun.
In Coronation Street the Weatherfield council elections are hotting up between Spider, the "new wave, pot-smoking, drunken eco warrior" (as Mike calls him) and Audrey "our very own Evita Peron" (as her campaign manager Fred calls her, in between spouting Shakespeare). Audrey is planning to play dirty (but not with Fred, we trust - that would be too much for viewers to stomach).
Rita is languishing in hospital with Alec clucking over her, his greedy, beady eyes perhaps focused this time not only on her dosh but on her wellbeing. What a match they'd make, if she pulls through with her orange hair intact following her accident with a gas appliance.
The court case following Brookside's explosion, due to another gas appliance incident, was suitably over the top, with Jimmy Corkhill ranting about Ron Dicko being fined £18 a week - "It's like putting Saddam Hussein on community service." This is Jimmy - former burglar, smack dealer, jailbird and coke addict - who killed aforementioned Dicko's 12-year-old son, and is now reformed as a teacher, complete with fake qualifications, all set to mould the young brains of Brookside. Imagine a Brookside Close full of mini-Jimmy clones in a few year's time. Perish the thought.
