THE STATE OF PLAY AT THE MOMENT
... is basically that Eastenders is running rampant over poor, old Brookside. Last week, we were forced to sit through two graphic sex scenes, leaving precious little to the imagination, not to mention, hordes of verbal sexual innuendo that was meant to be funny but wasn’t and what do Eastenders do?
They give us a quality drama centering around a family in crisis, tackling another domestic abuse storyline with yet another Celtic brute named Trevor, and mesmerise the viewers. Not a gratuitous tit or bum was seen, and the most provocatively rude word spoken was ‘arse’, but entirely within context. Quite simply, it’s making Brookside look cheap and amateurish, and Mersey Television should hang its head in shame, then sack the ineffectual, inefficient and less-than-talented writers who come up with this crap.
Eastenders is Shakespeare and Brookside is Carry On. It’s even got a Carry On cast - Lance could take on either the Kenneth Williams or Charles Haughtrey parts, Ron is Sid James, Kenneth Cope can be himself as he is a veteran of the genre; Marty Murray is like Bernard Bresslaw, Bev is Joan Sims; Leanne Hattie Jacques; Dire Murray Barbara Windsor and Jacqui Farnham Liz Fraser. Max could be either Leslie Phillips or Kenneth Connor. And Ben Hull?
DR NOOKIE!!!!! (Jim Dale). Add Jimmy as the Frankie Howerd character, and it’s complete!
Carry On Brookside! Leaving your television screens sooner than expected!!!
It’s the day after the grand opening of the bar, and poor, pitiful Katie is noticeably clean and dressed and ready for a day’s work. Louise the Ratchild sits at the table in the kitchen of NNT, nibbling her breakfast of cheese and nuts. Sammy, dressed in a dressing gown, staggers and stumbles into the kitchen area, bleary of eye and clearly hungover.
Louise and Katie exchange worried looks.
Over at Sitcom House, we are treated to even more porn - this one, showing less, is somehow more grotesque. We see the rotund form of Marty Murray, naked from the shoulders upward, furiously shagging and humping his wife. Cut to an equally fat Dire, flat on her back and jiggling to Marty’s thrusts, giggling as she’s jiggling.
HOW GROSS!!!
Back to NNT, and Sammy is still staggering blindly around the kitchen, trying to fix something to drink. Louise plaintively reminds Sammy that she has to take the child to school that morning, as her mate’s mother was unable to do so. Sammy tries to focus on Louise, obviously not understanding the gist of the kid’s words.
Before she can gather her thoughts together to make a reply, Katie intervenes, saying that SHE’LL take Louise to school, and she sends the girl into the bedroom to get her things together.
Once alone with Sammy, she demands to know exactly what Sammy got up to the previous evening.
Sammy objects, saying that she only went out with a few mates from the Health Club after leaving the bar opening.
Where did she go? Demands Katie, relentlessly, especially since she didn’t bother turning up home until 4AM in the morning.
Sammy vaguely replies that the group ended up back at some bloke’s flat.
Who’s flat? Asks Katie, but Sammy doesn’t know.
Was it Sol’s flat? Asks Katie, but Sammy denies this.
But Sol was there, says Katie, accusingly.
The fat jubblies, Dire and Marty, lie on their backs in the sitcom bed, exhausted from their sexual labours. Marty is worried about the time, as he has to get to work; and he remarks that after that session, he’ll be lucky if he’s able to walk.
It’s clear, however, that Dire’s only pretending to enjoy the sex. Sex for her, has a purpose. She MUST propagate. Lying lazily in bed, she moans about wishing she didn’t have to go to work. (Er, since when did she ever? She’s always skiving off).
Marty sits up, clutching his aching back and telling Dire to get up. She has to go to work.
Dire starts to whinge. She hates working at the Salon. In fact, she says, totally unrealistically, if she DID fall pregnant, the pregnancy could be a veritable godsend for getting her out of the salon. She couldn’t very well work with a BAY-BEE.
Marty remarks that they’d surely be out of pocket, but Dire protests. Not if she went mobile, she says. (Wasn’t she doing this before they moved?) Why, one of the girls who left the Salon recently to go mobile is never out of pocket; besides, she’d be her own boss.
Well, says Marty dourly, she’s not her own boss now, and she has to get to work.
This is an absolute shit scene with no bearing whatsoever on the rest of the programme.
Dire ignores Marty’s request and continues to loll lazily in the bed, suddenly remarking to Marty that she can’t help but think about Imelda Clough and her family. They must really be beside themselves.
As Marty bends to kiss her good-bye, he tells her that they should be thankful for small mercies.
Over at Hotel Corkhill, Dr Nikki has made her patient a cup of coffee - de-caff. She would have fixed him something for brekkie, but she was skint and couldn’t get groceries. (Er, what happened to Lindsey paying her?)
Jim asks what she was going to do for money, and Nikki replies that she was going to have a scrounge down the back of the couch. Always good for finding money, that.
Jim protests, saying that he’d left a tenner by the phone. She should use that for shopping. (A tenner buys a big shop in Liverpool? Go on!) And anyway, Jimmy says, Nikki needn’t think that she should be waiting on Jimmy hand and foot.
Nikki asks him if he’s remembered to take his meds.
Jimmy nods in resignation. Yes, he says, reality is shut out for yet another day.
Sammy sits slumped behind the reception desk at the Health Club, looking more than slightly the worse for wear. Katie pops in, just to tell Sammy that she managed to get Louise to school, as if Sammy should care.
At that moment, however, Mrs Farnham makes an appearance, looking more than slightly like the late Mrs Owen of Eastenders - same hairstyle, same decolletage top (with a Wonderbra, obviously, because she’s acquired a cleavage). She marches directly to the reception desk with still in her eye and a purpose in her manner.
No points for guessing what Sammy was up to last night, she remarks.
Sammy feigns ignorance. She doesn’t know what Jacqui’s talking about, she maintains.
It’s obvious, comments Jacqui, from Sammy’s red eyes and brewery breath that she’s been out on the drink; and by the way, Jacqui needs to have a word with Sammy later on, about her conduct - in AND out of work.
Sammy disappears conveniently to finish some task, and Katie asks Jacqui what that outburst was all about. Jacqui tells Katie that Sammy was up to her old tricks again.
Come off it, says Katie, she’s turned up for work hungover. Everyone’s done that at least once, she says. Why, just last week, says Katie, she turned up for work hungover and almost lost her job! (Liar! Katie turned up DRUNK as the proverbial SKUNK and almost lost her job. GET THE CONTINUITY RIGHT!!!)
It’s not just that, sulks Jacqui. It’s her blatant behaviour with Sol.
Changing the subject, Katie remarks that she heard Jacqui was in a bit of an accident the previous day.
Nothing serious, says Jacqui, but Katie wants to know if ‘everything’ is all right.
Jacqui, annoyed, assures her that it is. She’s ‘still pregnant’, if that’s what Katie means. As she continues her conversation with Katie, she’s annoyed even more by the appearance of Sol, who greets everyone cheerily and chirpily.
Jacqui IS going to have the baby, isn’t she? Asks Katie.
Yes, Jacqui concedes, reluctantly. It’s just that the timing of this pregnancy isn’t ideal.
It’s a baby not a board meeting, cries Katie.
Jacqui takes her point, but she still wishes the pregnancy could have been delayed.
Outside, as Bev leaves a Leanne-less garage, she encounters Nikki coming in the opposite direction, obviously to spend the generous tenner Jimmy’s given her. Bev greets Nikki by asking if the girl has a day off from uni (er, when does she ever go, precisely?), when Nikki explains that she’s running an errand for Jimmy.
Bev screws up her mouth briefly in that Bev-like way of denoting scepticism before remarking that she noticed at the bar’s opening that Jimmy appeared to have Nikki cornered on more than one occasion. Bev advises Nikki that she doesn’t want to sacrifice her studies and her life, only to play nursemaid to Jimmy Corkhill.
BUT DR NIKKI KNOWS EVERYTHING!!!
Jimmy’s just lonely, she explains, arrogantly brushing Bev’s concern aside.
Bev buys this line with a grain of salt too. Nikki wants to take care that Jimmy doesn’t become so dependent on her that he sees Nikki as a replacement for Jackie or Lindsey.
Jimmy’ll be all right once he finds someone of his own, asserts Nikki. Anyway, what about Bev? She teases. Didn’t she have that encounter with Jimmy on the pool table in the bar?
As the two women say good-bye, Bev spies Ron walking desconsolately in the direction of The Parade. Bev calls out to him, hailing him as ‘The Manor Park Mauler’.
Ron is embarrassed at his behaviour the previous evening. He apologises again to Bev, reckoning that he’d probably had a bit too much to drink. Having been in prison for four months, he explains, he wasn’t that used to bevying and the likes. He has to get used to that sort of lifestyle again.
Bev promises that she won’t tell anyone what happened in her flat, and Ron opens up to Bev about getting funny looks off people as he walks along the street. He feels as if he’s about to fall to pieces, he says, and it’s taking all his strength just to hold himself together to maintain a public facade.
Bev tells Ron he just has to get into some sort of routine now that he’s back home.
But that’s just it, Ron explains, desperately. Number 8 ISN’T his home anymore. In fact, it’s just the same sort of circumstance he encountered in prison - being forced to live with strangers in close condiitions. He’s returned to find, not only Rachel, Mike and the baby, but the Hiltons and their respective familial baggage as well. Why, Ron now feels out of place in his own home.
Bev spontaneously invites Ron upstairs to her flat for some lunch, but she warns him that he’ll have to keep his hands in his pockets.
Ant’s in chemistry class at school. It’s that time of class immediately before the lesson begins, when the kids waste time gossiping. Ant overhears a group of schoolgirls discussing the possible fate of Imelda.
Suddenly, the red-haired Scouse teacher appears, hearing the tail-end of the rumour-mongering. She calls a halt to such ridiculous proceedings in an effort to start the lesson, saying that the police are confident that Imelda Clough will turn up.
As she begins the lesson, she turns to Antony, and asks if there’s anything he’d like to own up to.
Poor Ant turns white to the gills and looks as though he’s just shit his pants. He’s reduced to staring goggle-eyed at the teacher, who then explains that she wants reasons from Ant re his missing homework. This is becoming a habit with Antony, she scolds; and if it doesn’t improve, he’ll simply have to stay behind after lessons for extra work.
As she turns to resume the lesson, Ant’s eyes are mirrors of sheer horror.
Dr Nikki has returned home to find Jimmy seated at the trusty Corkhill computer. Jimmy’s made an important discovery. The file detailing the events of the fateful warehouse raid, which Jimmy had thought had been wiped by Tim, have actually been found in a back-up file. He’d backed it up in another folder, he exclaims to Nikki. There it it, he points to the screen - Thoughts of a Man Alive.
Yes, well, replies Dr Nikki, primly, Jimmy wants to remember that he could have been killed on that raid, no thanks to Tim and Plank.
Actually, Jimmy confesses, he’s been thinking about his medications. He wants to try another alternative. Instead of stopping his meds altogether, he wants to try another self-management technique. Jimmy, he suggests, will decide when and if he needs to continue with his medication. If he feels that he does, he’ll pop a lithium. If not, he won’t.
He certainly wasn’t about to give up on controlling his own life. Jimmy wants to handle his own health situation, himself.
Maybe just feeling a tad out of her depth, Dr Nikki attempts to argue with Jimmy about this decision. Does he want what happened last time to happen again? She asks.
Jimmy assures her that it won’t.
(I’ve just had a thought. Maybe THIS is the way Brookside are going to down-play Jimmy’s mental health. In much the same way EE have developed this miracle cocktail of drugs enabling Mark Fowler to live a normal life and the rest of us to forget he’s HIV positive, Brookside will let Jimmy suddenly be able to self-manage his medication. He will permanently become THE SAGE in residence again. COP OUT.)
Sitting in Bev’s flat, next to her on the sofa, Ron pours his heart out to Bev about how lost and desolate he feels upon his release from prison. Funny, how the whole time he was inside, all he thought about was regaining his freedom. Now, liberty had hit him hard, he muses.
Look at his family. Jacqui’s got more than her fair share of woe on her mind, with her businesses and her family; and then Mike was just one step away from the workhouse with his debts. Ron confesses to Bev that whilst he was in prison, he used to fantasise about Anthea being there waiting for him at the prison gates when he was released. Sometimes in the fantasy, he’d be hard and tell her to sling her hook; but sometimes, he’d be grateful and thank her for standing by him.
In the end, he says, sadly, when the prison gates opened, no one was there for him.
Bev murmurs words of comfort, telling him that things will most likely settle down in his life.
This isn’t a life, Ron maintains, it’s an existence. He raises his head and looks at Bev, bleakly. He got four months for taking a life, he tells her, but he’s only now starting to pay for what he’d done.
Bev is curious. Is Ron saying that he was guilty? She wants to know.
Ron shakes his head, sadly. Clint Moffatt should never have been in that house, Ron admits; but neither should Ron have killed him.
Bev lowers her voice and whispers that Ron sounds as though he might benefit from the services of a shrink. (Right! We’re building up a practice here. CALL FOR DR NIKKI! PAGING DR NIKKI! IS DR NIKKI IN THE HOUSE? ON THE CLOSE? ON THE PARADE?)
Ron politely declines the Bev’s suggestion. He’d rather deal with this issue, himself, he says.
Bev is relieved. Well, she jollies him, that sounds more like the old Ron Dixon, the Ron Dikko who’s the survivor.
The old Ron Dixon, laughs Ron, ironically. The old Ron Dixon would never have cried himself to sleep each night he was locked in his prison cell. No, Ron tells Bev, he’s glimpsed the future and he doesn’t like what he sees. He’s nothing more than a sad and lonely old man, reduced to living with strangers.
Bev pauses reflectively for a moment and surveys Ron. When she finally speaks, Ron is pleasantly surprised. Well, she begins, slowly, Ron COULD stay the odd night at Bev’s if he wanted.
Ron’s face lights up, as Bev hastily adds that this would all be above board, and Ron would HAVE to sleep on the couch.
Ron’s still hopeful. Is Bev sure she wants this?
Of course, she is, Bev scoffs. Besides, Ron could help look after Josh for her, and that would save loads on child-minders.
Ron admits he’d quite like to spend more time with his grandson, and tells Bev positively that he just might take her up on her offer (and with a little more to add in kind).
Back at the Health Club, Jacqui enters the reception area to try to have a the wanted word with Sammy. She asks the woman to step into her office, but Sol intervenes, telling Jacqui that, just at this moment, he needed Sammy’s help with something in the pool area.
Sammy flippantly ignores Jacqui and dutifully follows Sol through the double swinging doors into the pool area, cooing, ‘Anything you want, Sol.’
Jacqui follows them both with a gaze of disgust, before she’s brought back to reality by the phone ringing on the reception desk. As there’s no one about, she’s forced to answer it. Beginning the phone call, however, she’s abruptly interrupted by a whirling dervish of a woman. The tall, black woman bounds through the Centre’s main door. She’s tall, with wild hair and a manic demeanor on her face, and she’s angry. She’s VERY angry.
Barely stopping before colliding with the reception desk and not even noticing or caring that Jacqui is on the telephone, she bangs on the desk and DEMANDS to know the whereabouts of her husband.
Jacqui excuses herself from the phone call briefly and politely tells the woman that she’ll deal with her in just a few seconds, as she’s got a client on the telephone.
‘WHERE’S MY HUSBAND?’ Demands the woman, shrilly, at the top of her voice. SOL BENNETT! WHERE IS HE? I KNOW HE’S HERE! I WANT TO SEE HIM AND NOW! WHERE IS HE? IF YOU DON’T TELL ME, I’LL FIND HIM MYSELF!
Suddenly aware that a volcano is about to erupt, Jacqui ends the telephone conversation, but not before the wild woman has turned on her heel and headed straight for the pool area, Jacqui following.
Inside, whatever it was they were supposed to be doing, Sol and Sammy aren’t doing it now, because they are sitting alongside the pool, with their legs dangling over the edge.
When Lyn Bennett spies the scene, she sees red.
‘SO,’ she begins in a voice that would make Dire Murray’s sound like a girlish whisper, ‘IS THIS THE TART YOU’VE BEEN SCREWING BEHIND MY BACK?’
Startled, Sol jumps to his feet, as an equally surprised Sammy scrambles to hers. Lyn won’t be silenced, however, and lashes into a verbal tirade against her husband. She’s just got his credit card statement, she informs him. There’ve been payments for nights away in hotels, flowers, expensive gifts. Who were they for? Certainly not Lyn.
Back at Brookie Comp, the science lesson continues. We hear the teacher droning on in her boringly toneless Scouse voice in the background, as the water for the chemistry experiment bubbles and boils in a container over the Bunsen burner. Antony is mesmerised by this bubbling of water. Suddenly, we are treated to another flashback in his mind, as we briefly AGAIN witness the struggle in the pond, before ...
The camera shifts abruptly back to the Health Club where Lyn finishes her argument with Sol by pushing him backwards into the pool. An underwater shot shows Sol sink down and bob back to the surface, as Lyn now turns her attention to Sammy.
Did the bitch think that the pair of them would cover their tracks? She sneers, grabbing Sammy by the hair as she tries to move away. Forcing her to her knees, Lyn drubs Sammy’s head under the water, shaking her and pulling her up, before repeating the gesture. The camera pans in close to see a head forced and held under water ...
And before our eyes, Sammy’s head becomes Imelda’s in Ant’s fight and in his mind. Ant is now staring, transfixed, at the boiling water in the small cauldron, as we hear his teacher call his name in the background.
Sol’s managed to get out of the pool and he and Jacqui rush to try to pull Lyn away from Sammy. They manage to succeed.
‘So this is how you treat ME, to run off with your posh tart!’ Exclaims Lyn. Well, Sol’s welcome to Sammy. And she dashes away as quickly, with Sol following.
The science teacher is still trying to communicate with Ant. As someone approaches him, however, something inside him appears to snap. Grabbing a lab stool, he flings it in the direction of the boiling cauldren and Bunsen burner, before continuing to use it as a weapon to smash the rest of the lab. The scene is shot in slow-motion, and at its end, Antony begins to cry uncontrollably.
Another student is despatched by the teacher to summon Marty, as the rest of the class stand silently, staring at Antony in disbelief at his actions. Ant stands apart from everyone else, a lonely, desolate look covering his face. Marty dashes in, followed by the student messanger, as tears roll down Antony’s cheeks.
Meanwhile, back at the Health Club, Jacqui is profusely apologising to the scurrying members who happened to be poolside at the same time as Lyn’s performance. When she turns away from them, she finds Sammy, catching her breath and trying to towel her hair dry.
‘Well,’ sneers Jacqui, standing maliciously over Sammy, ‘you didn’t manage to break up MY marriage, but you’ve certainly managed to break up Sol’s!’
Sammy asserts that she hasn’t done anything.
That’s patently obvious for everyone to see, remarks Jacqui, sarcastically, and Mrs Bennett certainly thought Sammy was capable of doing something. Without further adieu, Jacqui snaps at Sammy to clear her locker and get off the premises immediately. Sammy was sacked!
Back at the school, as the science teacher ushers the stunned students from the science lab, she informs Marty that she would have to refer Ant to see Mrs Plummer. Antony stands blankly nearby, with Marty kneeling in concern by his side. Marty nods silently, then tells the teacher that he’d get the lab cleaned up and then go to see the head.
Back at Hotel Corkhill, Dr Nikki is getting cosy with her patient. She offers to cook Jim’s dinner that evening, but Jimmy puts up a feeble protest. Dr Nikki is a young girl, he says. She should be out having a good time with her mates (er, what mates? No one in Brookside has any mates, except Adele), not pandering to an old no-mark scally like Jim.
Ooh, sorry, ehhhm, boot, Dr Nikki enjoys spending time with Jimmy. They have a good laugh. In fact, spending time with Jimmy reminds her of spending time with her dad. (Sorry, Dr Nik, but are you suffering from delusions? NO WAY, is Jimmy Corkhill Greg Shadwick).
Oo-er, Jimmy replies, he remembers Nikki’s dad. (He bloody well should, he only died in 1999, amidst all the Millennium Club shit Lindsey was tangled up with). Seemed like a nice feller, Greg. (What IS all this ‘only knew Greg slightly’ bit? MORE writers unfamiliar with the territory? How many times did Jimmy have Greg Shadwick in to fix some white goods of Jackie’s in the Corkhill kitchen?)
A drenched Sammy stumbles toward the door leading to the flats, when she encounters Katie. She asks Katie if she has her keys, because she needs to go upstairs.
Noticing how wet her sister is, Katie asks what’s happened.
‘Jacqui Dixon SACKED me!’ Cries Sammy.
‘Because of Sol?’ Asks Katie, suddenly suss.
‘Because of his nooter of a wife!’ Replies Sammy. Jacqui and everyone else only think Sammy was screwing Sol.
Katie admits as much as she thought the two were having a fling, but Sammy hotly denies this.
Bev has offered to make Ron some tea, and as she rises from the sofa, the camera, seen from the same angle as Ron’s eyes, lingers on her decolletage and ample cleavage. She asks Ron if he fancies a buttie, and the line is written and presented as though it is double entendre. Ron changes the subject, tactfully, asking how Josh is doing in school.
While Ron sits in the background on the sofa, we watch Bev shimmy about getting the accoutrements for fixing a sarnie together. At the same time she’s telling Ron that Josh is having difficulty settling down again - and she pauses briefly, holding aloft a phallic-looking cucumber. She asks Ron if he would like some of the cuke in his sarnie, and makes a smutty remark about it.
Ron is seen turning his head away and crossing his legs to conceal an obvious erection.
Was this scen funny?
WAS IT, BOLLOCKS!
Jacqui now confronts Sol in the locker room, where he’s showered and dried off. She immediatly remarks that she hopes he’s satisfied, now that that little performance of his wife’s had managed to frighten off most of the clientele for that afternoon.
Sol apologises, but hastens to add to Jacqui that Lyn’s suspicions of Sammy were totally unfounded.
Jacqui raises her eyebrows, sceptically.
Sol, looking uncomfortable, admits that he had been having an affair, but it wasn’t with Sammy. Sammy had done nothing. He was seeing Paula, the laundry rep. He knew it was wrong, he says, and it’s probably wrecked his marriage.
That was up to Sol to sort out, quips Jacqui, and he’s right. He was bang out of order. She sacks him and tells him to clear his locker.
Sol accepts his blame, but adds that he understands that Jacqui’s sacked Sammy as well. It was all fair and good that she sacked him; he deserved it; but Sammy had done nothing.
And that, ladies and gents, is the end of Sol.
Back at Bev’s flat, she serves Ron’s sarnie and takes a seat beside him on the sofa. As she sits down, Ron runs an appreciative hand down the length of her thigh.
Bev protests in mock horror, reckoning that Ron’s time in prison had left him an uncontrollable pervy.
Ron defends himself by stating that as a man, he has needs and desires, plus the fact that Bev is an undeniably attractive woman. Was there any chance of her and Ron resuming ...
No. Bev is adamant.
‘Oh, come on,’ wheedles Ron. ‘It’s been a long time since little Ronnie went to Bevland.’
Most fellas Ron’s age need something to help them out, quips Bev.
Ron then attempts to cuddle Bev. Bev must surely know, he says that she still has feelings for Ron. And she can’t deny that they WERE good for each other.
This is true, says Bev, but at the moment, Ron is simply attracted to anything with a pulse. Bev calls a halt to anything, deeming it over before it goes anywhere.
As Katie and Sammy return to the flat, Louise sits there waiting for them. Ignoring the girl, Sammy makes a beeline for the drinks’ cabinet and pours herself a stiff one.
‘That’s it,’ sneers Katie, ‘drown your sorrows!’
Glancing over her shoulder at her sister, Sammy replies that she’s surprised there’s any drink left, with Katie around.
Louise beats a hasty retreat, sensing a verbal battle, and Katie obliges by telling Sammy that Sammy wanted to sort her life out, for Louise’s sake, if not for her own. Sammy should look at herself, Katie continues. She’s got a 10 year-old daughter and all Sammy’s worried about is chasing fellas, and MARRIED fellas at that, and getting bladdered.
Louise sits in her room, covering her ears unsuccessfully against the noise of the quarrel.
Bev and Ron are still having a repartee in the flat. Bev is curious. She wonders if Ron were ever tempted by other fellas whilst he was inside.
Ron interrupts her in disgust. Why does EVERYONE assume that that sort of malarkey goes on whenever they hear of a fella being inside? He wants to know.
Well, a person hears these things, teases Bev. You know, Ron in the showers and all, someone taking a shine to him. She laughs and admits her tease, and Ron asks if she were serious about Ron staying over at nights.
Of course, she insists, but Ron was to understand that it was to be on a strictly self-catering basis.
Jacqui’s come to NNTto eat crow. Admitted by Katie, she faces Sammy and humbly tells her that Sol owned up and told the truth. He was carrying on with Penny, the laundry rep.
‘That stick?’ Is Sammy’s first reaction. ‘So you mean I was sacked for nothing?’ Glancing first at Jacqui and then at Katie, Sammy announces that both Katie AND Jacqui assumed Sammy was guilty of canoodling with Sol. In fact, Katie and Jacqui were SO certain.
Well, Katie wouldn’t have to worry about Sammy’s behaviour anymore, because she and Louise were leaving. And she dramatically leaves the lounge to go into Louse’s room.
Immediately she leaves, however, she returns. LOUISE HAS GONE! She shrieks. Jacqui and Katie exchange looks. No one heard anything, Katie maintains, how could she have left?
Marty has brought a shell-shocked Ant back to Sitcom House. Dire, of course, has heard all about it, and immediately assumes the concerned mother routine. Is Ant OK? She asks the lad. WHY did he do it?
Ant stares straight ahead. Marty tells Dire that Antony won’t say why he did it. Kneeling down beside the lad, Marty speaks into his ear. Did Antony realise how much trouble he was in at school because of this?
Antony says nothing.
Marty continues. Ant could very well be excluded.
Antony doesn’t reply.
Marty gives up in exasperation. He’s sick of this silence on Ant’s part. The boy turns and runs up the stairs, as Marty calls out after him. Ant can just stay in and think about what he’s done, he shouts.
Dire is thinking, as this exchange between father and son occurs. (It’s dangerous when Dire thinks). What was it Plank had said about Ant? She asks. Something about Ant needing to feel guilty about something? Well, Dire feels that way now. She feels that, after their little sesh that morning, that she was being punished for having fun.
Upstairs, crouched against his bedroom door, Ant listens to the muffled sounds of his parents discussing his behaviour. He begins to cry again.
Sammy, Katie and Jacqui are searching frantically around The Parade for Louise, as various cars and cabs scurry about in the background. Jacqui reports back that Louise hasn’t been seen on the Close.
What if she’s been kidnapped? Wails Sammy. That Clough girl’s gone missing, after all.
She’s run away, says Sammy. She checked in the girl’s room and found that she’d taken her things.
Sammy turns accusingly to Jacqui and Katie. This is all their fault, she maintains, for accusing her of all sorts. And she frantically turns away and begins to call for Louise.
Roy Boulter wrote this. Besides the gross sex scene and the Carry On innuendo,
it was OK.
Summary © 2002 Marion Watts
Brookside and all related materials are © Mersey Television 1982-2002