WHATEVER has happened to Coronation Street recently?

All the joy seems to have gone out of the famous soap. We’ve got one of unlikeliest storylines ever in Pat Phelan’s kidnap and now murder and coerced murder while his long-lost daughter is one of the most miserable characters in any soap.

It wasn’t so long ago, surely, that we had plenty of humour in the Street? We had hugely entertaining lines and scenarios involving the marvellous Mary and Norris. Now Mary has been made into the mother-in-law from hell and Norris just looks peevish.

Scriptwriters, can we please have a return to your wonderful wit and to some of the rich characters the soap has always boasted? Hilda Ogden and Jack and Vera may be long gone but we’ve still got Mary, Norris, Beth and Sean who are all brilliant comic characters. So let’s get back to glorying in plots that make us smile and lines that encourage us to laugh out loud before we all succumb to the soapy gloom.