ALL THINGS MUST PASS
Now THAT title’s got a good Scouse connection ... George Harrison, remember him? And the title of his first solo album, made almost 30 years ago, could hold true for Brookside today. All things must pass ... Sappy storylines, bad acting, atrocious writing, unbelievable characters.
Well, you’d think that, wouldn’t you? It’s basically the reason that all that’s left of Brookside’s long-term viewing audience continue to watch the programme - in the hopes that the detritus period will pass into history and Brookside will regain its high reputation of old. I mean, Phil Redmond promised us this, didn’t he? I mean, we believe him, don’t we? I mean, he wants the same thing as we do, doesn’t he? I mean, we trust him, don’t we? Don’t we? Well, DON’T we?
OK, OK ... Don’t all answer at once, I was only asking!
I mean, things can only get better, can’t they?
Now, the other viewers, the ones who’ve only been watching since 1997 or thereabouts, they don’t know any different. GOOD Brookside to them, means ‘fit’ lads, girls with big tits and no brains, and precious little acting ability. They wouldn’t understand Brookside pre-1997. They wouldn’t recognise it as the same show. They’d turn it off.
And maybe that might not be such a bad thing. But could Phil Redmond stand to lose them? He’s a man on a mission to restore Brookside’s reputation, but he wants to do so at the expense of pleasing ALL the viewers all the time; and in doing this, he’s boring the living shit out of the long termers who have better things to do with their time than sit around watching paint dry, for the benefit of the no-brainer adolescent ilk of viewers who don’t recognise good unless it’s accompanied by the accepted norm of what is acceptably beautiful, or in their words ‘fit’.
So ‘all things must pass.’ And maybe if Phil Redmond doesn’t wake up and do something sooner, rather than later, then all things passing just might include Brookside.
It’s still Father’s Day on Brookside - so if you forgot and didn’t get Daddy anything, then you had three extra days to find a pressie.
This episode begins with a recap of the last scenes of Friday’s episode. Bev’s party in full swing (if that’s what it can be called), Ron’s alerting her to the fact that Josh wasn’t playing in the corridor as commanded, Plank Murray building up speed in his rattletrap van, and Josh stepping into the street to retrieve his ball and the collision.
There’s a repeat of the slow-mo scene with Bev screaming and running to the prone and pristine figure of Josh, lying neatly in the street, as if posed for a photo shoot, a veritable tableau vivant popular in the 19th Century. As Bev, now joined by virtually everyone else at the party, kneels over Josh, screaming.
Antony Murray sits in the sitcom kitchen, gazing guiltily at his rosary beads.
Jacqui and Max Farnham are busily packing on what would still be a Sunday evening. Moving day has been scheduled for Monday. Jacqui tells Max that the kids are sleeping like logs, even though it’s not even dark outside. Everything’s set for the big move tomorrow. Max, however, is uneasy and WON’T feel comfortable until the move is completed. It isn’t that he doesn’t trust Ron, it’s just ...
Well, Jacqui replies, taping and labelling the packed boxes, funny Max should say that, because when she called around to Number 8 earlier in the evening, she found only Ray in. Ray said Mike had dragged Ron round to Bev’s party, of all things!
Max asks Jacqui why she didn’t go to Bev’s party.
‘WE weren’t invited,’ snaps Jacqui.
Max stifles a laugh and asks if she’s annoyed.
Not in the least, Jacqui replies. Bev got the hump with her because she wouldn’t let Bev have her party at the bar, that’s all. Besides, she had better things to do, like pack. The thing is, she continues, when she went to Ron’s earlier, there didn’t appear to be anything packed at all. Ron out, Mike out, Jessie at bingo ... And the move is tomorrow.
Oh, that’s just great! Moans Max, mightily. ‘We HAVE to be in that house by tomorrow!’
Josh lies in the street crying and screaming in pain. Mike, Dr Parr and Bev kneel beside him. Mike stands up as Dr Parr examines Josh, assessing that he thinks his leg is broken. Plank Murray, white and shaken, arrives on the scene to stand, trembling, beside Mike. As Dr Parr mentions his diagnosis to Bev, Mike shouts brazenly for Bev not to believe him, as the man’s a quack.
The ambulance arrives, and Dr Parr and Gaby the Grin move surreptitiously away, Dr Parr wishing aloud that he’d never been convinced to attend that party. The last thing he needed, he tells Gaby, is a confrontation with Mike Dixon.
Gaby scoffs at her husband’s reaction, but Dr Parr persists in his complaints. Mike Dixon meant what he said about making Dr Parr pay, this damned Scouse justice!
Gaby the Grin is unsympathetic. Well, she quips, coldly, Gary Parr shouldn’t have thrown the first punch.
Dire’s moved to stand beside a very nervous Plank. Grabbing him by the arm, she hisses a question about whether or not the van was taxed and insured. Plank hisses back that it was ... Hmmm. Remember what he told Ray.
As the ambulancemen lift Josh into the back of their vehicle, Mike and Bev climb in with him. Mike bends out of the back of the van and tells Ron to tell Rachel he’d gone to the hospital with Josh and would be home later.
As the young Antichrist sits at the sitcom table, gazing at the rosary beads, Brigid bustles purposely about the sitcom kitchen. As she passes Ant, noticing the fancy he’s taken to the rosary beads, she tells him that he can keep those, as they belong to her. God knows how good Antony is, she observes, fondly.
She sits down beside him at the table, saying that she has something to show him, and she pulls from her bag a small box, containing what looks like a heavy piece of Victorian jewelry in a velvet box. It is just that, an old-fashioned garnet bracelet. She tells Antony that the bracelet belonged to his ‘mother’s great-grandmother’, in other words, Brigid’s grandmother, who would, of course, be no relation to Antony at all. As soon as she finishes packing, she tells the lad, she was planning on giving this to Adele tomorrow. Originally, she thought of waiting until the girl had reached her twenty-first (but at the rate Adele’s going, she might not make that milestone).
Apparently, Brigid is having to move out of her house and into a temporary flat, whilst ‘the Council do it up.’ But really, we seasoned viewers know that this is the first step in Brookside’s subtle elimination, of ‘Cassification’ of Brigid. Why? Because Dire is leaving the series, and imminently; and there will no longer be any need of Brigid’s association with the Murray family. So, she’ll become just like Cassie and shrink from public view, occasionally mentioned in passing, but never seen. Her peripheralisation began shortly after Imelda was killed. Her leaving, as such, won’t be formally announced. She’ll just cease to exist, in much the same way Christy, Leanne and Lance have done. She, like they, will simply become a spoken word in the Brookside vocabulary.
As Brigid and Antony examine Brigid’s family heirloom, they hear the front door bang shut. Brigid rises, thinking it’s Dire and Marty returned home early, but when she reaches the sitcom lounge, Plank plonks past her and dumps his lanky body into the nearest chair. From the expression on his face, she can tell something is amiss. However, she asks him what’s happened.
Plank mutters in despair that he knocked a kid down on The Parade. Hearing this in the kitchen, Antony jumps from his seat in alarm. It was Bev’s son, Josh, Plank confesses to Brigid. He’s been taken to hospital. Plank was so upset and shaken, himself, that he couldn’t drive the car home from the scene and had left it on The Parade. (Er, sorry, but where were the police in all this? I thought they had to come to the scene of an accident?)
Brigid asks if the boy were seriously hurt.
Plank shakes his head, saying Josh may have broken his leg, but Plank could have killed him, he cries bleakly.
Antony recoils in horror.
Jacqui’s and Max’s packing is interrupted by the doorbell. When Max answers it, Ron enters. He’s just come by, he says, having previously telephoned them with details of the accident, to tell Jacqui that there is no way Bev could possibly be into work at the bar the next day.
Jacqui is slightly insulted by Ron’s tacit insinuation that she would expect Bev to report for work after her son had been injured. She’s not that inconsiderate, she tells Ron in a miffed tone.
Well, er, Bev might not be in for several days after that, Ron admits. Young Josh is sure to be in hospital for a few days. He just wants to make sure Jacqui has the bar covered for this sort of emergency.
Jacqui asks after Josh, and Ron tells her that the lad’s leg is broken. It’s not as serious as it could have been, because Plank Muddy wasn’t going at a great speed (looked fast to me, though).
Ron dawdles about the Farnham lounge for a moment, as Max and Jacqui resume packing, upon which Ron comments.
‘Just getting things all wrapped up for tomorrow, Ron,’ hints Max, broadly. ‘I assume you are as well.’
Ron begins to waffle, uneasily. ‘Well, it doesn’t haveter all be tomorra, does it?’ He reasons. ‘I mean, we’re FAMILY. We can move our bits gradually during the week, like.’
Max and Jacqui exchange horrified looks. ‘Ron,’ Max says through clenched teeth. ‘We have got to be in that property by tomorrow night.’
Ron rocks on his heels, rubs the back of his head and doesn’t meet Max’s gaze.
Mike Dixon paces the floor of the hospital corridor, when suddenly Bev emerges from a room to tell him that the medical staff have taken Josh to the operating theatre (hopefully for a lobotomy). The break was bad enough that they will have to pin the fracture before putting it in plaster, she tells Mike, tearfully. (So, by that information, I deduct that Josh has a compound fracture, which is nasty, which means there’s a lot of, sorry a lorra, blood and the bone from the break, actually protrudes from the skin. I know that, because I had one of those myself 21 years ago, and - as a result - I have a pin and a plate in my right leg. Josh didn’t even muss his clothes when he fell. For a compound fracture, he would have had to have been hit at some speed and knocked some distance, OR the car would have had to have run over him. So phoney! I want to know when the next character on Brookside has to give birth. It will be interesting to see if she takes her tights off to do so.)
Also, Bev says, he’s got a concussion, which means he’ll have to stay in hospital for awhile. WHAT a bad piece of writing. SURELY the reason the kid’s staying in hospital is due to the nature of the fracture, NOT a bump on the head!
Mike tells Bev that he has to phone Ron to update him on Josh’s condition. As he moves to leave, Bev clings to him desperately, begging him not to leave her alone and to stay with her as she waits for Josh. Mike holds her and promises to stay as long as she needs him to do so.
Marty and Dire begin to make their way home from the scene of the accident, Dire, as per usual, commiserating with Bev’s plight. Well, says Marty, at least Plank passed the breath test AND the car was legal.
AND THANK GOD HE HADN’T GOT OOP MOOCH SPEED! Booms Dire, as the windows on the Bar and the garage rattle from the strength of her voice.
Still, muses Marty, gazing back at Plank’s parked rattletrap, he should have driven home. He’ll lose his confidence that way. Turning to Dire, he nudges her lasciviously. By his calculations, ‘tonight’s the night’. (And most of the remaining viewers of Brookside grimace with heavy distaste, as we’re about to be informed of more of the machinations of the Murray reproductive cycle).
NO, bellows Dire, telling the world, TOMORRA’S THE NIGHT. THE USUAL MUDDY TRAGEDY HAPPENED A DAY EARLY THIS TIME!
Ron’s finishing a telephone conversation with Mike when the door opens and Rachel enters, carrying Beth. She’s got her hair in ridiculous Heidi of the Alps braids, looking like a parody of Pocahontas; and she’s angry. We know that, because she’s wrinkling her forehead and blinking furiously.
Ooooh! She seethes, entering the lounge. That M-eye-ke! Ooooh! Where is’e? Oooh! ‘E knowed ‘e’adter coom pick Rachel’n Beth oop at Sinbad’s. Oooh! ‘N Sinbad’s give Beth a tenner’n she’adter use seven of it fer a taxi. Oooh! She were joost so mad!
Ron manages to shut the simple wench’s rubber-lipped Mancunian mouth up long enough to tell her about Josh’s accident. Mike was at the hospital with Bev and Josh, who was in theatre, after being run over. He just called Ron to tell him he was staying at the hospital until after Josh’s surgery.
Talk about Jacqui being unsympathetic! Rachel’s reaction made Jacqui look like Mother flippin’ Theresa! Oooh! Well, wh-eye do M-eye-ke haveter go-ah? Wh-eye din’ Ron go-ah, or Jac-keh? (Or Max, or Ray, or Jessie, or Katie Rogers, or Jimmy Corkhill, or Tinhead? BECAUSE MIKE IS THE BOY’S FATHER YOU FAT-ARSED, MANCUNIAN-MOUTHED, BRAIN-DEAD, DIMWITTED PIECE OF TIT! AS MUCH JOSH’S FATHER AS HE IS BETH’S. IT’S NOT GOING TO CHANGE AND HE’S DOING HIS BIT OF RESPONSIBILITY NOW, SO LIVE WITH IT, STOP BLINKING AND SHUT THAT WHINEY MANCUNIAN MOUTH THE FUCK UP!)
Oooh! She continues, blinking even more rapidly. She doan kno-as wh-eye she put oop wi’M-eye-ke doin’fer Josh! (Because YOU suggested he take more of an interest, you dozy cow! I would like just once for someone to tell Rachel to her face how stupid she is).
Dr Parr and Gaby the Grin are still loitering about The Parade. Gaby the Grin is now voicing concern about Gary Parr’s run-in with Mike Dixon. What happens if he involves the police? She asks, impatiently.
OK, so Dr Parr struck the first blow, the doctor explains rationally, but he was provoked. It was almost like self-defence. And, he reminds her, not being cynical, but the police are used to this sort of thing, and to them, they will differentiate between a respected physician being provoked by the verbal abuse of someone who’s tantamount to a scally. (So, with Mike Dixon’s degree et al, this is what he’s come to be regarded as in his life - a scally, POOR WHITE TRASH).
Once Dire and Marty return to Sitcom House, Dire begins to fuss excessively over poor Plank, who still sits moodily in a chair in the lounge. He’s in shock, Brigid diagnoses. She knows that because he didn’t want any tea.
Plank’s trying to shake the sawdust from his head and replay the accident. He just lost concentration, he repeats over and over. He feels terrible about this.
This scene is not lost on Antony, who watches silently from the safety of the kitchen.
NEVER MIND, Dire soothes, in her brassy voice. ANYROAD, THE BIZZIES KNOW’E’S SODDY.
Plank rises suddenly and storms out of the room. Marty asks where he’s going, and Plank says he’s off out to meet some mates.
‘Don’t go drinking!’ Shouts Brigid, after him.
Later in the evening, Ron is making an attempt to begin packing his belongings. Rachel, still wearing her Minnie-ha-ha hairdo, still wrinkling her forehead and blinking eight to the bar, stomps heavily around the kitchen, sulking.
Ron pleads with her to give him a hand with the packing for the move.
When she’ad te-ah, she replies, sullenly. Anyroad, hit’s qua’r pas’ ten. And she sits down at the table to frown some more.
Ron, standing in the background, gazes at her in frustration and shakes his head. Ray and Jessie have been no help at all in this, he mutters, almost to himself. Ray’s always over at the bungalow trying to tell the builders how to do their jobs, and Jessie’s always wasting time in the back garden of the bungalow. He reckons that Nick fella’s sick of the sight of the pair of them.
Oooh, Rachel remarks with annoyance, do ever’thin’ havter be packed tern-eye-ght?
Yes, answers Ron shortly, because Lord and Lady Farnham want to move in tomorrow. (Charming way to speak about your daughter).
Bev and Mike sit together in the hospital corridor, waiting for Josh to return from surgery. That Plank Muddy wasn’t looking where he was going, Mike mutters. He hopes for Plank’s sake that Plank wasn’t on the ale.
Bev looks up, startled. Was he?
Mike assures her that the breatalyser test was negative.
Bev begins to moan and wail. Oh, WHY did she send him out of the flat into the corridor to play? It makes her feel as though she’s a crappy mother.
(Sorry, but she is. Bev MAY have had Josh’s best interests at heart, but she is, at the end of the day, a crap mother. She dropped the kid off at the drop of a hat with a woman inexperienced in child care so she could swan off for a week to Marbella; and she’s done this before when Josh was a baby, when she scurried off to Spain with Peter Phelan. She left the kid with anyone and everyone, and she’s spoiled him absolutely rotten. She’s the sort of mother who thinks her child does no wrong and gives the rought side of her tongue to any figure of authority who dare speak otherwise. Josh has inherited her mouth, her arrogance, her rudeness and her attitude. He treats her appallingly, and it’s her own fault).
She continues to bewail her predicament, which goes a long way to prove the point that she IS a hopeless mother. She remembers when Mike had his car crash. Why, he was in hospital for months. What if that were the way with Josh? Not being able to go to school or play footie for months! He’d be stuck at the flat and get bored. OMIGOD! How was she going to cope with that AND work? She might lose her job and her flat and everything! Oh, she just can’t cope with it! And she throws herself into Mike’s arms again.
(THIS is why she’s a bad mother. Any decent mother would be more concerned with her child’s state of health. Sod the job and the flat. Josh would and should be the centre of her concern, and getting him well and caring for him should be her first priority. The rest will take care of itself. Bev is more concerned with losing her lifestyle as a result of Josh’s accident, and THAT’S why she’s a shit mother. Is this what Brookside intends to portray? I wonder ...)
It’s the next day, presumably Monday, but who knows on Brookside?
Dr Parr and Gaby the Grin step from their flats onto the Parade, off to their respective jobs. Dr Parr tells Gaby the Grin that he’s rung the hospital to check on Josh. They’ve pinned and set his leg and he should be in hospital for about a week.
Gaby’s so concerned about her bezzy mate’s kid that she doesn’t even comment on this. Instead, she hurriedly tells Dr Parr that they’ll be having a takeaway tonight. She’s got a bit presentation to make at work and they discuss this interesting topic for a moment. Dr Parr is familiar with the firm, with whom Gaby the Grin is liaising today, and as she trots off to work, he shouts after her that she should ensure that Beluga caviar is on the menu for the presentation lunch as the corporate bods whom he knows love it.
Josh lies asleep in his bed. Beside the bed, on a small fold-up cot, Bev sits up, after having spent an uncomfortable night.
It’s SUPPOSED to be moving day at the Dixons’. Rachel is blinking and frantically packing Beth’s toys, whilst Ron enjoys a cuppa in the kitchen. Mike enters the room, carrying a couple of small boxes. He’s been out trying to appropriate boxes for the move. These two were all he could come up with.
‘Bloody Nora!’ Exclaims Ron. ‘We’ll need more than that lot! Yer’ll havter go out again. And quick. ‘Cos we’re meant ter be movin’ terday, son.’
Why does it have to be today? Demands Mike.
Because Max and Jacqui say so, grumbles Rachel, as she ferries loads of Beth’s toys to and fro to the box.
Well, the box hunt will have to wait, Mike announces. He’s promised Josh and Bev he’d call in at the hospital, and he’s also meant to be looking for a job.
Immediately, she hears the word ‘hospital’, Rachel sets up a mighty moan. Oooh! Do M-eye-ke havter go-ah bek terday? Oooh, all ‘e do is sit round hozzy wi’ Josh’n she need’im ‘ere wi’Beth.
In the midst of this mayhem, Ron finishes his cuppa and gets up from the table. He’s had enough of this. If no one else could be bothered to do things properly, it would be down to him. He’s off out now to get some boxes, he announces.
Across the Close at Sitcom House, Adele is jibing Plank about the accident, calling him a stunt driver. Plank’s not amused at all by this and tells his liver-lipped sister that he’s genuinely worried about Josh. He’s hoping the kid’s going to be OK. He’s just glad he didn’t kill him, but what if he had?
Marty enters the kitchen and asks Plank shortly if he’s managed to pick his car up yet. The lad would do better just to get in the car and drive before he lost his nerve.
Big Dire booms into the room announcing that SHE’S ASKED HER MOOM TER COOM ROUND FER HER TEA. AFTER ALL, SHE’S MOVING TERDAY AND SHE’S GOT A SERPRISE FER OUR ADELE.
Adele starts to jump up and down excitedly, jiggling her tits for the lads who watch and wank, wanting to know what the surprise is. Dire teases that she’ll just have to wait until Brigid arrives.
Marty continues to nag Plank to retrieve his car.
In her posh Birkenhead office suite with a de luxe view of the Mersey, Gaby the Grin takes a phone call. She answers, identifying herself as Gaby PARR, which is an anomaly, as PROFESSIONALLY she is supposed to be known as Gaby THAXTER - at least, that’s how she was introduced in the show. Oh, well, what’s another inconsistency on Brookside? The show’s days are numbered anyway.
No one replies on the other end of the line.
As Marty Muddy prepares to leave for work, his very unsubtle wife approaches him from behind and grips him around his ample waist, ferociously. SHE’OPES HE EN’T ABOUT TER DO OVERTIME TERNIGHT!
Marty smiles, or rather, grimaces. No, he assures her, he realises this is their night for a euphemistic early night.
BOOT DIRE CAN’T’ELP THINKIN’ BOUT JOSH, she says. MOOST BE A NIGHTMARE FER BEV. WHY, IF SHE EVER’AD A BABY OF HER OWN, SHE’D NEVER LET IT OUTER HER SIGHT. (Oh, the poor kid. Well, who’s surprised by this remark? She’s fucked Antony up royally, so why not do the dirty on one of her own. Leave it to the likes of Dire Muddy to populate the world with pervs).
SHE WOONDERS, she says, aloud, IF SHE SHOULD GO TER SEE JOSH OR MAYBE SEND’IM SOOM FLOWERS?
No, says Marty, emphatically, turning to face her. And she was not to encourage Plank to do anything of the sort. Doing something like that was tantamount to an admission of guilt, he explains, and it wouldn’t look good on Plank if and when any insurance company got involved.
Jacqui’s finishing a phone call to the hospital and she announces to Max that Josh is comfortable after his surgery. He’ll be in plaster, however, for a few weeks.
Well, quips Max, that’ll put an end to his hooliganism for a few weeks.
Almost immediately she puts the phone down, it rings again. This time it’s Nigel (not Warren anymore), Max’s solicitor. He begins a conversation with him, as the doorbell rings. Jacqui answers the door and Rachel enters with Beth.
Rachel is offering to look after the kids for the day and keep them out of the way for the move. She’d rather do this, she says, than take part in the awful moving process. In the background, we hear Max getting more and more annoyed in his conversation with the solicitor.
Finally, he puts the receiver down. They can’t complete today, he announces to Jacqui and Rachel, with total exasperation, because RON hasn’t signed and returned the contracts to his solicitor yet. However, he continues, if Ron can do that and get the documents back within the hour, then the exchange and completion would just about be able to go through that day.
Jacqui starts to dash next door, but she’s stopped by Rachel, who tells her that Ron’s not there. He’s gone out to scrounge for boxes for the move, she tells Jacqui, blinking profusely.
Mike and Bev sit on either side of Josh’s bed, Mike signing Josh’s cast. Glancing up from signing, Mike asks Bev how she slept the night before. Bev begins to moan. She tried to tell the hospital staff that she needed a proper bed, she whinges, but all they could manage to come up with was a minty folding bed. Well, she was just going to have to make do with it, she says, resigned. Josh was going to be in here for a week, and she aimed to stay with him. Well, she shrugs, she can’t leave’im on his own here, can she? (Oh, can’t she?)
Mike tells Bev that if there’s anything she wants doing, she’s only to ask him; and immediately, she asks him to stop by the flat and pick up some things she’ll need for the week.
At that moment, Ron pops his head around the door, announcing that he’s brought a present for Josh. Josh greets his grandfather and takes the parcel from him, unwrapping it greedily. It’s a football. Josh is pleased, but Bev is appalled.
‘Oi,’ she shouts at Ron, ‘he got roon over chasin’ one o’those!’
Ron’s undeterred. It’s for when he’s up and about again. And speaking of moving, Ron says, he only stopped by for a moment. He’s out looking for boxes, as they’ve got to get on with moving today. Seems as though he’s doing all of it himself. Ray and Jessie were like the flamin’ Scarlet Pimpernel whenever he needed them.
Mike asks Bev what she needs collecting from the flat, and Bev rattles off a list a mile long of clothing and accessories. Oh, she adds (a bit of gratuitous writing here) if Mike has trouble finding where she keeps her knickers and things, Ron will know.
Mike eyes his father sharply. How would Ron know something like that?
When he did all her ironing, Bev answers.
It was Bev who inspired Ron into starting his laundry business, Ron adds. Ron takes his leave of the trio, promising to come visit Josh again soon. As he turns to leave, he suddenly remembers something and turns back to Bev. Oh, and Bev wasn’t to worry about the bar being covered. Jacqui’s sorted everything, he says.
After he goes, Bev twists her mouth ironically and looks across the bed at Mike. ‘Boot how long will it be before I get the sack?’ She wonders.
Again, we scoot to the posh Birkenhead high-rise office, and Gaby the Grin’s phone rings again. She answers it, but again, there’s no reply. She looks worried now.
Back at Chateau Farnham, it’s pandemonium. Max is on the phone talking at great speed and at the top of his voice to Lance at the restaurant (so Lance is being Cassified too, becoming little more than a name occasionally mentioned) and Jacqui is shouting orders down the mobile to Nikki at the bar. Miraculously, they finish their individual conversations at the same time. Max tells Jacqui that Lance has things covered at the bar for the rest of the day, and Jacqui says she’s told Nikki that Bev might not be in for a few days.
The doorbell rings. Jacqui answers it and Ron pushes his way into the lounge, which is a mass of packed tea chests.
‘Aye, aye, what’s this?’ Ron enquires. ‘I thought yer’d all be moved by now.’
Max’s eyes bulge in disbelief. He looks as though he’s about to explode. ‘Thought we’d be moved!’ He sputters. ‘We can’t even EXCHANGE CONTRACTS until YOU return the signed contract to YOUR solicitor!’
Oh, that, Ron dismisses Max’s ire with a wave of his hand. He and the Farnhams were only going to swop houses, for goodness’ sake. After all, they were family. What did they need bloody contracts for? Now, let’s get this show under way, Ron urges.
Max refuses. He tells Ron that he does not intend to vacate his premises until everything was legal and in order.
Plank has finally returned to his parked car. He looks at it hesitatingly for a moment, then gets inside.
Ron returns to Number 8 to find the contracts, finding Rachel and Mike having a discussion. Mike’s moaning about Dr Parr and his many sins, chief amongst them now being the fact that the doctor’s punch had broken his bridge.
Rachel’s fed up with hearing his whingeing. Oooh, she mutters, she doan kno-ah wh-eye M-eye-ke doan tek doc-teh’s of-feh’n get teeth fixed fer free. Af-teh all, doc-teh first on scene at Josh’s ac-sie-dent.
Ron starts rummaging through a box on the shelf behind the couple, muttering about trying to remember where he’d put the contract. He asks Mike and Rachel if they’ve seen it, and they pause long enough to tell him that they haven’t seen any contract.
Mike picks up his regular theme about about Dr Parr misdiagnosing Beth’s meningitis. And what about all those other kids dying of meningitis in the hospital, as if their illnesses were all the collective fault of Dr Parr, himself.
Ooh, that’s not’is fault, says Rachel.
Mike declares that he wants that nasty, sneaking, little Dr Parr to learn his lesson. Meanwhile, he has to go back to the hospital. He reaches down to a nearby chair to pick up a plastic bag, which he doesn’t realise is upside down. When he picks up the bag, he upends its contents, and Bev’s knickers and bras spill all over the chair.
Rachel wrinkles her forehead and blinks in horror.
The Muddies, including Brigid, are all assembled in the sitcom kitchen. Brigid has just arrived. They are discussing how the police reconstruction went the previous week. Marty says he’s heard from the head that they reckon it was a waste of time. They got no real leads, except a couple of calls from some very old people.
Brigid makes herself at home at the sitcom table, beside Liverlips. She’s brought the surprise for the girl, and she shows her the garnet bracelet. It’s over one hundred years old, she tells Adele, who tries not to look bored. It belonged, she says, to Adele’s mother’s great-grandmother, who had it given to her when she turned 21. (WHY doesn’t the woman just identify the original owner as HER grandmother? The original owner is no relation of Adele’s ‘mother’!)
Dire gazes fondly over Brigid’s shoulder at the passing on of family history. BE SURE YER LOOK AFTER IT! She bellows to Adele, causing Brigid to jump. KEEP IT SAFE!
Plank enters, asking Dire if she’s kept his tea warm. Marty looks up briefly to ask if he’d collected the car.
Yes, replies Plank, placidly, and he’d driven all the way to St Helens and back in it.
Brigid murmurs snugly about having two happy grandchildren.
(Such a statement usually presages shit of some sort hitting the fan).
Adele has taken the bracelet upstairs, and she corners Plank who’s also come upstairs. She asks him if he would buy some CDs off her.
Nah, replies Plank, uninterested. If he wanted any of her CDs, he’d probably take what he wanted. And by the way, Roosle called. Said he’d kill himself if Adele didn’t return his calls. Says her mobile’s always turned off.
Does he really? Adele asks, equally uninterested.
Plank teases her about the Ayia Napa trip and her lack of funds. This is why she wants to sell some of her things, she says. And all she’s got is this naff old bracelet, she says, holding up Brigid’s gift as though it were a piece of poo.
Well, shrugs Plank. If she wants the money, she’s going to have to sell the piece of jewelry.
Adele is left thinking.
Gaby the Grin sits in her posh, high-rise office. The phone rings again. She looks at it, not making any attempt to answer.
Back at the Muddies, Brigid is waffling on about the state of public toilets, especially after some drunks have been let loose in the area. Dire and Marty sit uneasily in the sitcom lounge, Dire being worried that ‘tonight’s the night’ and that Brigid will overstay her welcome.
HAVE YOU SEEN THE TIME? She shrieks to Brigid.
Hmmpf! Snorts Brigid, taking the hint. She’ll go, if she’s in the way, especially while it’s still light.
Now Dire takes a hint, and it seems that we’re in for more surprises and inconsistencies - because SOMEHOW, the abjectly skint, seriously stretched Muddies, have acquired a car! And what happened to the bank loan Marty took out for Dire’s private care? And also the 3 grand they owe Brigid?
DIRE SUGGESTS MARTY GIVE BRIGID A LIFT HOME IN THE CAR!!!!!!!!!! Marty reluctantly agrees, whispering conspiratorily to Dire about the early night she promised him.
Dire has another surprise up her sleeve, or rather down her gullet. DIRE WHISPERS. She hisses back to Marty that she’s going to spend the time he’s driving Brigid there and back soaking in a nice warm bath.
Marty looks hopeful as Dire sends him away with the admonition of not to drive too fast.
Back to Gaby the Grin, who seems to spend a lot of her high-flying work life staring out of her picture window. Suddenly, she’s startled by a familiar voice from behind her.
‘Just look at that view,’ says a small, weedy man with a Northern accent. He well remembers what a cracker of a view her office had. He misses his visits to her office, he continues, smarmily, walking toward her. Gaby the Grin isn’t grinning now; she’s looking slightly scared.
They certainly had some good times in this office, he sighs.
‘Rob Dexter,’ gulps Gaby, when she can speak at last. ‘It’s been awhile,’ she adds, weakly.
Oh, he’s seen her about a bit over at her Manor Park gaffe, he says, breezily. Nice bar over there. Nice health club too. In fact, he muses, he might join it. And there was plenty of space over there too. He’s looking for some office space in order to set up a small consultancy.
Gaby is now sitting on the top of her desk, looking VERY humble and facing him. He walks across the office and sits beside her on the desktop. She recoils slightly. He has an oily presence. Well? He asks, after a moment. Isn’t she going to ask him about Linda, his wife?
Gaby asks how the woman is, in a barely audible whisper.
The man’s face hardens imperceptibly and he replies with an edgy voice. ‘She died last month.’ Oh, it was very peaceful, he continues. Happened in a hospice. Very dignified, he adds, his voice cracking with emotion.
Gaby’s mobile sounds. She glances at it, seeing that the phonecall is from Dr Parr. She tells Rob Dexter that Gary’s phoning her.
Now he wouldn’t like to run into Dr Parr, Rob Dexter affirms. Besides, he’d only just stopped by in order to tell Gaby the Grin personally about Linda’s death. He gets to his feet casually and walks to the door of Gaby the Grin’s office.
Yes, he says, as he walks toward the door. Linda’s death was expected, but it was still a great shock. He turns to face her. Yet it also means that now he’s free and single again ... And the two of them can pick up right where they left off ...
He turns and walks out the door.
Gaby the Grin has the grin wiped off her feral, little face.
Barry Woodward wrote this. Do the words ‘watch’, ‘paint’ and ‘dry’ come to mind?
A CASE FOR DR PARR’S ABILITIES
Or
THE TERMINAL ILLNESS OF BROOKSIDE CLOSE
Well, I suppose it’s official. Brookside, as a programme, is going to die. In fact, it’s in its death throes as we speak. Oh, TPTB, Phil Redmond - in particular - have yet to officially announce it, and they won’t until the patient has actually emitted an audible death rattle; but suffice it to say, that the illness is terminal.
How do I know? I hear you ask. It’s been revealed in code, courtesy of the national tabloid The Daily Mirror and confirmed in similar code by that veritable doyenne of Liverpool media, The Liverpool Echo.
According to the Mirror, Phil Redmond is entrusting the future of Brookside as a programme into the (in)capable hands of Dean Sullivan. Yep, that’s right. Apparently, it’s true, and it’s not another of Brooksider’s clever ruses to determine how many of the web team of soaps-r-us are lurking. Sullivan, the ex-teacher whose ONLY acting experience comes in having portrayed Jimmy Corkhill since God was a boy, is about to take on the mantle of Executive Producer come August.
Now, given the fact that - according to the estimable Mr Marquess - the function of the Executive Producer is to serve as, effectively, the show’s chief writer - i.e. he who determines the storylines and issues to be covered - we can bank on one certainty: that Brookside will cease to become Brookside as WE know it, but instead, will become a euphemism for what, by any other name, will really be The Jimmy Corkhill Show, starring Dean Sullivan. It will be Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy ad infinitum.
Oh, but this is ground-breaking, chortles The Magic Rabbits, AKA Subscriber Taylor (ex-Webmeister). How exciting! How innovative! Brookside leads where all the others follow and all that! Bullshit.
Take Eastenders, for example. It just so happens that that programme has a vacancy at the moment, for - like Brookside - Series Producer. Now, imagine Eastenders deciding to appoint Steve McFadden (AKA Phiw Mitchell) as Series Producer, but allowing him to continue in his role as Phiw. Well, one of two things might happen. Either McFadden, a seasoned actor and RADA-grad might go into carpe diem-mode and ensconce himself more fully into the behind the cameras role, at the expense of diminishing the character of Phiw, or he might use this God-given opportunity to enhance the image of his on-screen persona and, effectively, insure that the Mitchell family dominates proceedings on the programme. Either way, it’s to the ultimate detriment of Eastenders, as a whole.
In Brookside, the latter scenario, rather than the former, will occur; basically, because this appointment will massage Sullivan’s already enhanced ego, to such a degree, that he and his storylines will become unbearably smug. Jimmy has already progressed from scally loser to drug abuser to drug dealer to struggling straight man to fraudulent teacher to lunatic to Sage of the Close. What next? Jimmy the Christ?
This move on the part of Phil Redmond smacks of ultimate desperation. He’s unable to get the viewing figures to rise higher than 2.1 million, and in the wake of Big Brother and the incipient return of the final series of Friends, Channel 4 is getting increasingly impatient with carrying what has eventually metamorphised into an over-sized, over-funded and under-talented white elephant. Surely, he can’t expect the viewing public to believe that Sullivan, who - at best - is a wannabe writer, is the most viable candidate for this role. More qualified and, believably more ABLE, candidates would surely include the likes of Maurice Bessman or Carmel Morgan. At least the latter would endeavour to bring more of the recognisable Brookside humour to the fore.
It’s the end, quite simply. The last-ditch effort. The propping-up of the uniformed corpses against the walls of the fort in an illusion of 100% strength. The sending of the goal-keeper up the pitch to join ten teammates in one last concerted effort to yield a score.
And then, the final whistle is blown ...
By a 19 year-old, pneumatic, bleached-blonde girl, which heralds the ultimate demise of a show once praised to the heights for its intense realism and gritty portrayal of social issues, but which has now become a cross-between Reader’s Wives and Opportunity Knocks.
Jennifer Ellison is leaving. Going. Departing. Saying ta-ra. And thousands of male adolescent and latent male adolescent hands remove themselve from the nether portions of their trousers in dismay. A new generation will have need of Viagra at the departure of the nubile Emily.
Of course, Redmond’s spin on the actress’s departure is that she’s ‘taking a year off’ Brookside, ostensibly to concentrate on other projects. That’s euphemistic for ‘she’s leaving.’ No one takes a year off from a soap - unless you’re Claire Sweeney, and even she didn’t plan on returning as soon as she is.
No. You leave. Chances are, if you’ve been on a soap long enough to be thoroughly identified with your character, like Julie Goodyear (Bet Lynch), Letitia Dean (Sharon Watts Mitchell) or Sid Owen (Ric-KAYYYY Butcher), you give yourself a good innings to try to shake off that character - usually from two (Owen) to seven (Goodyear) years before returning with your tail tucked between your legs in humble submission.
Redmond’s ALLOWING Ellison a year, and if I were she, I’d be highly insulted. He’s reckoning on her talent not being above that of the ubiquitous Ms Sweeney, whose talent - on a scale of one to ten - as an actress can be found to rank somewhere around minus 5. Phil Redmond is wrong.
The likely scenario is that Ellison wants to leave, that she wants to be a real ACTOR, which will mean that she’ll most likely go to London, enrol in Olivia Conti or Anna Sher (because she’s still young enough), shed her hair extensions, revert to her normal mousey brown colour, pull on some jeans and bulky jumpers and LEARN to act. She’ll take diction courses to tone down her Scouse accent and modulate her voice. In six months’ time, she’ll be unrecogniseable on the streets of Liverpool. Scrubbed up for a night out, she’ll look classy. She may take voice lessons and end up on the West End stage. She’s expressed a desire to do films. Maybe she’ll start dancing again. The future is hers, and - outside of Liverpool and with the right sort of agent - she’ll fly.
But Redmond hopes she doesn’t. His message to her was probably: ‘So you want to leave? Well, take a year off and come and see me then. The door will always be open.’
That’s what HE thinks. When Ellison leaves, SHE’LL have the key, and her final act before leaving the premises of Mersey TV will be to bolt and lock the door from the outside and then ditch the key.
And she’ll afford herself a smile somewhere on the motorway between Liverpool and London, at the thought of the bonfire of the vanities about to be lit under the arses of Redmond, Sullivan and Co by Channel 4 as the series is brought to an ignominious end, and she’ll thank her Maker that she jumped before she got pushed.
It’s the beginning of another day and this quick-flash scene-setting scenario is beginning to wear thin on Brookside. The first of the lot occurs at the flat belonging to the Parrs. The couple, who clearly don’t love each other at all and merely tolerate the other’s presence for the benefit of keeping up appearances, move about the place in muted silence. Dr Parr eyes his wife suspiciously and she is on edge.
At the Dixons’, Mike is in a rush trying to pack the plates into one of the boxes Ron has scrounged. He drops the dish onto the floor in his hurrying.
Bev lies uncomfortably on her camp bed in the children’s ward of the hospital, cornily holding Josh’s thuggy little paw as he sleeps.
Back at the Parrs’, Gaby the Grin is agitated as she peruses a folder of paper before cramming it into her handbag-cum-briefcase. She screws her little rodent face into a worried scowl and tosses some dialoge over her shoulder at the husband she’s come to regard as a nuisance.
Max Farnham wants a copy of the school report concerning the police reconstruction, she crabbily remarks to Dr Parr. She’s tried to e-mail it to him, but he must have packed his computer in anticipation of that damned move, she mutters. Oh, well, she’ll just have to deliver the document by hand.
Glancing briefly at their kitchen table, she sees that Dr Parr hasn’t touched his breakfast. She asks why he hasn’t done so.
He’s not hungry, snaps the doctor, tetchily. Threats of malpractice somehow conspire to destroy his appetite.
Gaby the Grin sighs wearily. There isn’t goint to be a malpractice suit, she assures him. And if Mike Dixon dared, he simply wouldn’t stand a chance.
But he refused to see the Dixon child on a home visit, Dr Parr argues.
That would have been his fourth home visit, Gaby retorts.
Because he was having lunch, the doctor explains. Does she realise how that would sound to a tribunal?
So? Gaby the Grin shrugs. And he was nabbed by the child’s mother while he was off-duty on a bank holiday as well. Besides, he told Rachel to bring the child to the clinic the following day, which she didn’t do. SHE chose to take the baby to A & E; Dr Parr may have just diagnosed meningitis if he’d seen Beth that day.
Dr Parr is pale with worry. Already he’s hearing rumours point the finger of blame his way. How long before one of Mrs Tucker’s relatives starts saying the same thing.
‘You work a 60-hour week already!’ Remarks Gaby the Grin. ‘What more can you do?’
‘I just feel that there’s always someone waiting around the corner to trip me up,’ says Dr Parr, bleakly.
(Comment here: Why the fuss about Beth? Beth had meningitis, but she certainly didn’t appear to be at death’s door with the disease. Most of the time she was in hospital, she appeared to be sitting up laughing. She was only in for a few days and she emerged with hearing, sight, speech and mental faculties intact. Her illness cost her parents nothing, except Mike’s job - which he QUIT anyway. Why the fuss? Why the threat of malpractice? There are simply no grounds. Do the Brookside writers know this and is this just a way of making Mike Dixon more of the poor white than he’s become already? Please, someone answer. I want to know.)
As Ron sits relaxing in an easy chair in the Dixon lounge, Mike rushes to and fro, busily packing and grumbling about the current state of affairs in his life. This isn’t at all fair, he moans to Ron.
Ron stretches laconically and unfolds his newspaper. Mike wants to relax, he cautions. Pack in haste ...
How can Ron sit there so calmly and say that? Mike exclaims. Mike is all wound up and all because of that nasty, sneaking, little Dr Parr. Why, because of that man, Mike was toothless, homeless, practically daughterless -
Now, now, Ron soothes. It’s not the doctor’s fault that Mike’s homeless.
Sod all this, Mike declares, leaving off packing in a huff. He’s off out to see Josh. (Anything to get out of responsibility). And after that, he was going to seriously think about putting in a complaint about Dr Parr to the Health Authority. And he sprints from the house.
After he leaves, the doorbell rings, and Ray, who’s just come downstairs and is hurrying out of the house, opens it to Max.
Ray, dressed in his usual overall, pushes impatiently past Max. Max catches hold of Ray and asks if he’s finished packing yet.
Ray struggles free from his grasp, almost shouting: ‘Just because I’m retired, doesn’t mean I don’t do a full working day, ya know.’
Max blinks after Ray in bewilderment. (Is this BLINKING becoming an epidemic?) Then he walks slowly into the lounge, to find that virtually nothing has been packed, and Ron is sitting reading a newspaper and having a leisurely cup of tea.
‘No packing?’ Max utters, in amazement.
Ron raises his cup of tea to Max and grins cheekily. ‘Not yet, Maxie,’ he smiles. ‘Not until I’ve got confirmation from my solicitor that the funds have been transferred into the vendor’s account.’
Max’s eyes bulge in anger. ‘Ron,’ he says, slowly, speaking through clenched teeth. ‘I ... am ... the ... vendor!’
Ron sighs, deliberately winding Max up. ‘There yer go, Maxie. This legal system is a minefield.’
Max huffs heavily for a moment, sounding like a bull ready do strike a matador, before making himself calm down long enough to ask Ron if everyone else in the house were packed.
Ron calmly shakes his head. Rachel’s out with Beth and Jacqui’s kids, Mike’s off to see Josh, Ray’s next door at the bungalow; and Jessie’s off helping Brigid move today.
Max almost explodes with frustration.
Across the Close, Plank, Adele and Ant are on their own in Sitcom House. Big Dire and Marty are out. Plank starts to tease Adele, wanting to know if she’d manage to talk to Roosle to find out if he’d died yet. Then Plank and Ant have a grumble about Josh. Plank is relieved that the kid only got off with a broken leg, but he still has nightmares about it, still hearing Josh’s screams.
Ant reckons Plank actually did Josh a favour.
Plank wants to know why Ant thinks this way.
Well, Ant begins, he remembers when Plank was about 14 and broke his wrist. The number of girls who wanted to sign his cast was too many to count.
Plank remarks that he’d rather just be able to turn the clock back; and Antony assumes a pensive look, thinking about Imelda.
Next-door at Hotel Corkhill, Jimmy is furiously cleaning the kitchen, whilst Dr Nikki stands in the foreground watching him work. Jimmy pauses for a moment and glances about the re-decorated room. He tells Dr Nikki that her sister Emily would never get a job on a makeover show on television.
She might have the Charlie Dimmocks, he says, pulling out his shirt to indicate Emily’s boobs, but she wasn’t very good at decorating. He proceeds to fanatically start to clean the kitchen cupboards.
Why is he doing such a massive clean? Nikki asks.
Nesting, Jimmy replies, and Nikki is horrified, thinking that the next step will be to move Happy Smiling Helen and voluptuous 18-12-16 year-old Stephanie into the already crowded household.
Jimmy modified his remark. He just wants to make the house presentable for guests, he says. Having finished the kitchen, he now proposes to give the extension a once-over. As he walks toward the door, he remarks to Nikki that he thought about taking Happy Smiling Helen down to the beach for the weekend, maybe find some rocks for the rockery Tim had built.
Nikki remarks that she’s doing some extra work for Jacqui this weekend, covering for Bev whilst Josh is poorly. In fact, she was due in at the bar today, because the exchange of houses was due to take place.
Jimmy chuckles. ‘And they say I’m mad!’
Mike and Bev are seated on opposite sides of Josh’s bed. Josh announces to everyone that he’s bored, which means that his feckless parents had damned well better snap to attention and amuse him.
He’ll be home soon, Bev chortles.
But he won’t be able to play football, moans Josh. No footie, no life.
Well, he won’t have to be in a wheelchair, Mike says. He reminds Josh that he was in a wheelchair for months and look at him now.
‘Found a job yet?’ Quips Josh, rudely.
Bev is more worried about her own position in relation to Josh’s accident. Why, oh WHY didn’t she invite Jacqui to that party? She moans, as if this would have prevented Josh from misbehaving.
Mike assures Bev that Jacqui is laid back about Bev spending time with a convalescent Josh. She’s put herself in Bev’s place, imagining what she would do if anything ever happened to Harry like that. Bev has no worries. Her job’s safe, promises Mike. (Er, why do we think it’s not?)
Tim catches up with Plank on the Close, as Plank appears to be polishing up his rattletrap. Tim immediately offers his sympathy to Plank, having heard about his accident involving Josh. Plank wasn’t to worry, Tim assures him, confidently. The accident wasn’t Plank’s fault. And why didn’t Plank call Tim immediately it happened?
As the two lads talk, Gaby the Grin crosses the Close in the background, headed directly for Chateau Farnham. Tim notices her and nudges Plank to look. They ogle Gaby the Grin’s backside, appreciatively.
‘Well?’ Nudges Tim, again.
‘Well what?’ Replies Plank.
Tim inclines his head knowingly in Gaby the Grin’s direction, as she’s now ringing the Farnham doorbell. ‘I would, wouldn’t you?’ Tim grins.
‘You’re not supposed to,’ Plank rejoinders.
(Another question: WHY are all the male inhabitants under the age of fifty on this programme absolutely stymied in a lascivious sense, by the looks of Gaby the Grin? She has a mouth that makes Cherie Blair’s look positively demure, and I half expect Mickey Mouse ears to start appearing out of the side of her head and for her to burst into:
‘Who’s the leader of the club that’s made for you and me
M-I-C ... K-E-Y ... M-O-U-S-E!’
She has such rodenty features!)
Plank admits morosely to Tim that he still feels guilty about hitting Josh.
Well, replies Tim, edging closer to Plank and lowering his voice. He’s got something that’ll cheer Plank up, and earn him a bit of money too. Did Plank know that the Farnhams and the Dixons were swapping houses today?
So? Says Plank, uncomprehendingly.
So, repeats Tim, he wonders if they might need the services of two removal men who happen to be right on their doorstep and who’ll charge half the going rate?
Max opens the door to let Gaby the Grin enter. As she does so, she hands him the folder containing the official report about the police reconstruction. She admits that the police are doubtful it jogged anyone’s memories. She glances about the house, noticing everything all packed and ready to be shifted. But where is everyone? She asks innocently.
Max replies that Rachel’s taken the children out for the day in order to ensure that they’re out of the way of the move.
And Jacqui’s not helping out? She asks, with a disdainful and bitchy edge to her voice.
No, Max replies patiently. Jacqui had to cover at the Health Club, as her manager has a personal problem concerning her daughter. (So, are we to assume that SAMMY is the Health Club manager now? Since when did this get slipped past us?)
There’s an awkward pause and Max then rhetorically comments about there being no progress on Imelda Clough’s disappearance. At that moment, Gaby the Grin’s mobile rings and a look of dread covers her face. Reluctantly, she pulls it from her bag and looks at the display. Heaving a sigh of relief, she turns it off. Work-related, she says.
Max notices that she looks worried and comments on this.
Momentarily hesitating, Gaby remarks that some aspects of her past have come back to haunt her. Would Max have any suggestion on how she should deal with this?
Max laughs grimly and says that he has to deal with his past coming back to haunt him every day of his life. His advice to her is to bury the past.
Hmmmm ... Easier said than done, she mutters. HER past is alive and kicking. Anyway, she says, recollecting her thoughts, she only stopped by briefly to leave him the Imelda report. As a final parting shot, she begs Max not to mention any of their conversation concerning her past to Dr Parr.
Mike meets a distraught Bev in the corridor of the hospital. Bev has just been collared for an interview with a Social Worker. Flopping herself heavily down beside Mike, she wails that she doesn’t deserve Josh. (Bev, the DEVIL doesn’t deserve Josh). But the social have really been giving her a grilling and making her feel like a prime piece of poo (and so they should).
They had the police report about the accident and wanted to know all about the nature of Josh’s injuries.
Mike tries to calm her down, assuring her that there was no way she was at fault for Josh’s accident.
‘He was playing outside alone, without supervision!’ Bev wails, plaintively.
And they know that Josh was in care years ago, even though that was none of HER fault.
(Er, why wasn’t it? I have a question for Scousers who can read this summary. WHY is it that it appears that NONE of Brookside’s more feckless characters EVER accept the blame for any of their actions? Mike and Rachel’s predicament is neither of their faults; nothing that’s ever happened to Jimmy is or ever has been his fault; ditto the Murrays; ditto Bev. WHY? Surely you all can’t be such white trash?)
Again, Mike tries to calm her down. HE knows that Bev’s number one priority since Josh was born has always been Josh. She’s a good mother, and has been for the past NINE AND A HALF YEARS!!!!!!!
ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! WHO WROTE THIS ARTICLE? LOOK! LOOK! LOOK, WHO WROTE IT!!!!!!!!!! MORE CHANGING THE GOD-DAMNED GOALPOSTS!!!!! JOSH TURNED EIGHT, THE NUMBER AFTER SEVEN, ON CHRISTMAS DAY 2001. THIS MEANS HE’S EIGHT AND A HALF, HEATHER, YOU ARSEHOLE!!!!!!!!!! WE DO NOT, NOT, NOT, NEED ANYMORE AGE CHANGES ON THIS SHOW THAT THE OFFICIAL MODERATOR OF THE FORUM CAN’T BEGIN TO ACCOUNT FOR. HEATHER ROBSON, YOU BRAINLESS PIECE OF SHIT, IF YOU WERE ON MY WRITING STAFF, I’D RISK GOING TO TRIBUNAL TO ENSURE YOU NEVER TYPED A WORD OF SCRIPT AGAIN. YOU ARE NOT FIT TO BE ASSOCIATED WITH EVEN AN AMATEUR PRODUCTION OF A NATIVITY PLAY - I SHUDDER TO THINK HOW YOU WOULD MAKE THAT A POLITICALLY CORRECT PIECE OF FODDER!!!!!
Bev is sobbing loudly now, and she effects to make Mike feel sublimely guilty too. She knows that Josh’s existence has always been a burden to him, and she truly didn’t want to interfere with Mike’s current domestic set-up; but Mike must admit that, compared to Beth, Josh has always come second best.
Mike stutters yet another promise that once they’re through this dilemma with Josh at the hospital, he WILL stand by her and be a good dad to Josh.
Bev refuses to believe it, and rightly so. She’s been handed so many empty promises by Mike. No, she vows, turning 30 was her wake-up call, and it wasn’t pleasant. She sees exactly where she’s going in the next 30 years, and that’s nowhere, alone.
Ray’s doddering about the bungalow, as the electricians are working. Passing by them, he makes a bad joke about never trusting a sparkie with no eyebrows. He steps outside the front door, only to find a group of about five thuggy-looking, scumbag kids, all with number-one haircuts and low Neanderthal foreheads, loitering around his workbench. He shouts at them and they scatter off.
They meet up in the driveway of Number 5, where Mick used to live. The leader of the feral pack, an ugly-looking scrawny kid who looks as though he should be up in Magistrate’s Court somewhere (what a fine advertisement for Brookside) announces a rave in the empty house.
This thugwit is Stewart Gordon, a presage of the new family to come. He looks like scum. Are we surprised? I wonder why not.
Plank Muddy wanders aimlessly along the hospital corridor, surreptitiously looking about. He hesitates and pushes open a ward door slightly, seeing Mike and Bev sitting with Josh inside.
Max is on the telephone, having an animated conversation with his current wife. The house is in utter chaos, he tells the unseen, unheard Jacqui. No, he replies in obvious answer to her question, nothing’s been done next door at all. And to top it off, the pensioners seem to have disappeared into the Bermuda Triangle. Oh, and Ron ... Well, Ron’s the prize pillock of them all, he says. RON’S sitting on his arse next door waiting for a call from HIS solicitor to say that completion has occurred.
At that moment, the doorbell rings and Max answers it. Ron enters, announcing: ‘We have lift-off.’
Max says good-bye to Jacqui, to hear Ron confirm that completion has taken place. Ron says he’s come over to Max’s just to get a few things straight about this front and back entrance of the properties sorted out, regarding the move. Max opens his mouth to speak, but Ron beats him to it, pausing to admire what posh tea chests Max has for the move.
He realises that he says that they agreed that Max would move his stuff in via the rear of Number 8 whilst Ron moves his goods out the front, but Ron has a better idea. You see, Ron has knackered old boxes, whose bottoms might fall out at any time, so rather than Max entering the house through the back door, he’d rather Max enter by the front and Ron leave by the rear ... Come to think of it, he pauses again, examining Max’s tea chests, he has a better idea.
He then suggests that Max and Jacqui move all their stuff to Number 8 and unpack it; then Ron could use THEIR boxes for removal of his goods.
As the front door’s still opened, Tim sticks his head in and asks Max and Ron if they’ve arranged any removals men to do the move.
Ron glances at Maz. ‘Yer never went and hired a removals firm?’ He asks in disbelief.
‘Well,’ Max stutters, indignantly, ‘I did for yesterday, but I had to cancel, due to YOUR awkwardness.’
Tim presents him and Plank as O’Leary and Murray Removals, lifting and shifting of goods a specialty for half the price Max and Ron would normally pay.
Hearing Plank’s name mentioned, Ron begins to kick off about Josh’s accident, but Max diffuses the situation by telling Tim that he’ll let Tim know if he needs any help.
Tim hears the noise of a car entering the Close and glances out of the Farnhams’ front window to see a red car arrive filled with thuggy-looking kids. He leaves whilst Ron and Max are still quibbling.
Max is telling Ron that he had no right to kick off about Plank like that.
‘Maxie,’ Ron explains, exaggerating his patience, ‘that lad is responsible for RJosh’s terrible accident.’
‘Ron,’ Max replies, through tightly clenched teeth, ‘a terrible accident is the fact that we live next door to each other.’
Outside, as Tim sees the hoardes of thugs traipse up the Johnson driveway, he confronts the cocky, little Stewart Gordon. Tim tells them that they’re trespassing on private property, that the house belongs to Mick Johnno, and Tim threatens to phone Mick.
The kids take no notice. (I do hope that this isn’t the beginning of the emasculation of Tim. He could have made chicken shit out of that little scrawny tosser).
Meanwhile, Plank reluctantly enters the hospital ward to meet the steely stare of Mike. ‘What are YOU doing here?’ Mike snarls at Plank.
Plank looks very humble and admits that he only stopped by to bring a gift for Josh. He tosses a paper bag onto the bed. Josh greedily grabs it and opens it to find an England shirt. Of course, he has to be prompted by Bev to remember to thank Plank.
Plank confides to all concerned that he wishes it were his leg which had been broken in the accident.
Mike screws his face into a distasteful grimace. ‘So yer think that a pressie’s gonna make everythink OK?’
Bev reaches across the bed to put a restraining hand on Mike’s arm. ‘He’s making an effort,’ she tells the unreasonable Mike. ‘After all, it was an accident.’
Plank wasn’t looking where he was going, Mike seethes, and because of that, Mike’s son is lying there with a broken leg.
Plank turns and mutters a subdued ‘See yer’ and leaves.
***HINT: WE’RE SUPPOSED TO BE SYMPATHETIC. BUT THIS WAS MERELY PATHETIC.***
Ray’s tottered back to Number 8, where Max has now followed Ron. As Ray passes through the lounge, he glances about vaguely. Funny, he remarks to Ron and Max, but he’s going to miss living in Number 8.
As Ray carries on into the kitchen, Ron hisses desperately to Max, pleading with him to allow Ray and Jessie to continue to live in Number 8 until the bungalow was finished.
Max is adamant. No way.
But it’ll only be for a few weeks, Ron cajoles, as Ray returns to the lounge. Ron raises his voice to Ray, saying that he was only telling Maxie that it would be just a few weeks before the bungalow was finished. Ray nods vaguely, but suddenly, he’s distracted by the blare of overly loud dance music.
He, Ron and Max go to the front window and pull the curtains aside. They see a plethora of thuggy-looking kids enter the Johnson house.
‘That’s ALL I need!’ Grumbles Ron.
After Plank Muddy has left, Bev tries to calm Mike down. Poor Plank, she says. He deserves compassion, not bitterness.
Mike would give him compassion, he vows, in the shape of an insurance claim.
Bev ticks him off. How can Mike think of doing that? She asks. Leave the insurance companies to worry about genuine claims. As far as she could see, no one was at fault in this accident. No blame, no claim. Besides, poor Plank was just an honest lad, who worked hard. (Honest, eh? Getting paid cash in hand, not paying VAT or tax or N.I. Major fraud, that!)
Besides, Bev reminds Mike, who was responsible for causing Ron’s insurance claim on Number 8 by standing on a pipe? Bev’s too tired to argue with Mike, she ends the diatribe. Her son’s crippled, she’s behind with her rent and she hasn’t washed her hair since she was twenty-nine.
(This is Heather Robson’s pathetic imitation of Carmel Morgan’s wit).
Back at Sitcom House, Adele is on the phone with Roosle, when Ant enters the lounge. Immediately, he notices a receipt amongst her school stuff - £40.00 for selling Brigid’s ancestor’s bracelet. When Adele’s finished her phone call, he asks her why she sold his Nin’s bracelet.
‘To get away from you for two weeks,’ she replies.
Ant tells her piously that she shouldn’t have sold the bracelet. It was special to their Nin.
‘If it were so special,’ jibes Liverlips, ‘why did she give it to me then? It’s mine to do with as I want.’
Ant declares that he’s going to tell on her, and Adele bribes him with one pound not to snitch. He agrees, but only if she doesn’t filch on him if he ever has to tell her a confidence.
Across the Close, Ron takes a gander out the front window and turns in horror to Max. The Close is filled cheek-by-jowl with cars, all attending the rave in the Johnson house.
‘Have yer seen that?!’ He asks Max, rhetorically. ‘Hit’s a bloody caaarpark out there!’
Max takes a look out the window and mutters something about Glastonbury, as someone in the Johnson house pumps up the volume even louder.
Ron cups his hands over his ears, helplessly, then shakes his fist violently in the direction of the Johnson house. ‘National Serr-vice should never have been abolished in this coountry!’ He exclaims. He then apologises to Max. He doesn’t think that they’ll be able to move at all today. After all, Ray was having his bath now and once he’s had a
bath -
Max clenches his fists in utter frustration and puts his face up close to Ron’s. ‘We have been waiting ALL MORNING FOR THIS MOVE!’ He shouts. ‘WE HAVE TO MOVE TODAY!’
Plank and Steve walk toward Sitcom House, glancing uneasily at the raucous emanating from the Johnson house. Tim has apprised Plank of the fact that Ron had knocked back his proposal that the lads help the Farnhams and the Dixons swap houses. In fact, says Tim, Ron kicked off royally when he heard Plank would be doing some shifting. But Plank shouldn’t let that worry him, Tim says confidently, because Ron Dikko was always kicking off about something.
Well, mutters Plank, hesitantly, he DOES have reason to worry. He tells Tim that the tax on the van wasn’t legal. He’d switched the valid tax disc from his car to his van, and then he’d gone and hit Josh. If the Dixons took it as far as an insurance company, Plank was done for it.
Suddenly, Adele taps furiously at the front window of Sitcom House, drawing the attention of Plank and Tim. As they enter the house, she indicates the party taking place at the Johnson. Some lad’s selling tickets on the door, she tells them.
Upon hearing this, Tim and Plank rush towards the Johnson house, pushing past potential punters and telling them to clear off. Hearing the rucus, Max and Ron step outside Number 8. Nikki walks onto the Close at this moment, and is accosted by two drunken, thuggy-looking louts before Tim puts his weight about and tells them to do one. Ray, wearing his bathrobe, follows Ron and Max out into the Dixon front garden.
With his hands firmly grasping Nikki’s arms, Tim guides his sister-in-law through the throngs of people back to Hotel Corkhill, asking if she’s all right. Nikki nods nervously, thanking Tim, and goes inside.
She looks around for Jimmy and finds him sitting in the extension, staring at the walls. At first, she thinks he’s been taking a nap and asks if the noise from the party was keeping him awake. Jimmy scrutinises the walls of the room, which have been freshly painted by Nikki, herself, recently.
These walls need another coat of paint, he remarks, in a flat and toneless voice. Yer can still see the words Nikki tried ter paint over. Turning to look at her, he asks how he’s ever going to explain those words written on the wall to Happy Smiling Helen.
Why tell her? Nikki stutters, uncertainly.
Because, the Sage softly explains, those words were a part of his being and not to tell Happy Smiling Helen would be to deceive her.
‘Jimmy,’ begins Dr Nikki, ‘what yer wrote on them walls (how’s that for a university student?), yer wrote when yer was manic and aggressive.’
Jimmy wants to know if he scared her during the episode when he was locked with her in the room.
Dr Nikki shrugs uneasily. ‘Yer growled, boot yer didn’t bite,’ she joshes.
Jimmy wants to know what he said at that time, but Nikki avoids his gaze. He talked nonsense, she says, trying to dismiss his concerns.
But Jimmy persists. He has to know what he said, how he acted, because he worries about getting that way with Happy Smiling Helen (who would most likely shit herself, bobbing her head to get away - and she wouldn’t be happy or smiling).
***HINT: THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE POIGNANT AND WE’RE ALL SUPPOSED TO MELT WITH SYMPATHY FOR OUR HERO, JIMMY.***
Still clad in his dressing gown, Ray marches purposefully up to the door of the Johnson house. The scummy-looking piece of trailer trash who’s selling tickets on the door, makes a sarky remark about not offering reductions for OAP’s, when the shaven-headed, little weasle-faced thug, Stewart Gordon, appears at the door.
Ray shouts for him to turn the music down, and the little toerag pretends that he can’t hear what Ray’s saying. ‘Sorry,’ the abject little tripe of trailer trash mimics, ‘the music’s too loud.’
Ray then asks where the lad’s father was, and the lad affects not to hear, cupping his ear and leaning toward the older man, cockily.
Ray asks where the lad’s mother was. The scurvy, little no-mark leans closer. Ray repeats his question.
‘Oh, me moother!’ Stewart Gordon, finally hears what Ray’s saying. ‘Oh, she’s inside. Der yer want me ter get her?’
‘I want you to know that you can’t have something like this around here!’ Ray complains.
‘Around here?’ Shitty Gordon repeats. ‘And what is around here, eh? What’s this place called?’
Ray looks suitably vague for a moment. ‘This place?’ He says, querulously. ‘Why, this is Brookside Close.’
‘Then this,’ announces the charming Mr Gordon, ‘IS THE BROOKSIDE MASSIVE!!!’
(Here’s an interesting observation: Isn’t it funny how the thug-headed element of Northwestern youth emulate the decidedly Southern caricature created by an Oxford-educated Orthodox Jewish entertainer? And isn’t it more ironic, that they can’t see the caricature part of the creation?)
And he introduces himself to the viewers as Stewie Gordon. (There is already a lowest common denominator contributor on the Official Forum, who’s declared how fit this imbecile is, which reflects her own level of imbecility - the poster in question purports to be an Everton supporter, but also swears undying love for Stephen Gerrard. Go figure, Blues fans.)
As Ray returns to the Dixons’, Mike is just finishing a phone call to the police and goes into the second reception room to try to quiet Beth, Harry and Emma, who are screaming at the noise from the party, which is deafening. In the kitchen area, Max and Ron are still squabbling about the delayed move.
Max carps at Ron, accusing him of not having any consideration for Jacqui at all. She’s been on her feet all day between the Health Centre and the Bar, covering absences, and now she’s going to be up with the children all night, because of Ron’s recalcitrance. (Although, I must say, myself, that I can’t see how this party is Ron’s fault. If Max and Jacqui had moved, the party would have still been thrown and the kids still disturbed).
Ron tries to reason with Max in his own way. He’s just trying to do well by Ray and Jessie, he says. If Max would only agree to Ray and Jessie staying, then they could all move happily the next day. And the two begin to barny again.
Ray stumbles into the kitchen and grabs the kettle, filling it with water. He couldn’t stand much more of this noise, he stammers. He’s of a mind to call the police.
‘Michael’s already done that,’ Ron informs him, just as another, louder blast of noise emanates from Number 5. Mike shouts in alarm and one of the kids starts crying again. (Er, where the hell is Rachel in all this commotion?)
As he fills the kettle, Ray puts his tuppence into the argument between Max and Ron. Well, he announces, firmly, there’s no way he and Jessie were going to move now. He nods assertively in Ron’s direction. They won’t be pushed from pillar to post, he vows. He simply won’t stand for it.
Ant stands at the front window of Sitcom House, along with Adele, watching the proceedings across the way at the Johnson house. Amid the commotion, in his mind, he hears Imelda, calling him ‘meff’.
A police car, blue lights flashing, pulls onto the Close.
Now standing alone at the window, Ant hears Imelda speak again and laugh diabolically. Ant cups his ears and starts to cry. ‘Leave me alone!’ He pleads to the voices in his head.
As the police approach the house, Shitty Gordon shits himself, turns square to the camera and announces that his dad will surely batter him.
Well, only a shit would introduce another shit. This episode was written by the increasingly awful and untalented Heather Robson.
Summary © 2002 Marion Watts
Brookside and all related materials are © Mersey Television 1982-2002