The end of an era

Next week, for the second and final time, the McDonalds will have sold the pub and Liz will no longer be ruling the roost from behind the bar.

She first worked at the pub in the early 1990s as a cook, helping Betty Turpin and it seemed to spark her ambition. Newton and Ridley offered her the Queens and she and Jim ran that for awhile but it was her pub, not his and his jealousy killed their relationship temporarily over it. It didn't end well for Liz. She's worked behind the bar at the Rovers on and off but missed out on her chance to be the landlady when Vera and Jack Duckworth beat she and Jim to the post after Bet had to give up the pub, unable to find a financial backer.

This began a period of unsettled life for Liz. Her marriage eventually died, she was involved with a hood for awhile, had an attraction to Des Barnes, nearly reunited with Jim but fell for Jim's physiotherapist. She remarried Jim some years later when he was banged up for killing Jez Quigley but it didn't last. We didn't see a lot of Liz as she first followed Jim around as he was moved to various prisons and later, she lived in Brighton for awhile and spent a lot of time in Spain with her son, Andy. She returned to work for Fred Elliott and when he decided to sell up and travel with his new bride, Bev, Steve bought the bar from him, though it ended being the Estate of Fred Elliott since Fred died on his wedding day before it was formally sold. Ashley as his next of kin finished the transaction and Steve owned the pub, with Liz's name over the door. It was a dream come true for Liz who had always wanted to own the Rovers Return.
 

There were more ups and downs, a marriage and divorce (Vernon Tomlin), a number of fellas including Harry Mason and Lloyd Mullaney and after a near-reconciliation with Jim who was released from prison went badly when he robbed a bank to get the money to buy the pub from Steve for her, she left Weatherfield, heart broken. Steve found a manager, Stella Price,  and then later sold the pub to her and her partner Karl, but that was a disaster that ended in Karl burning down the pub which killed two people. Liz returned a couple of years later to be Steve's business partner when he bought the pub back.

Even though it was Steve and Michelle's names over the door and even though Michelle might tell people she was the landlady, we all knew the truth. That title belonged to Elizabeth Jane McDonald. For me, Liz has entered the Rovers Landlady Hall of Fame, just as worth as former Queens Bet Lynch and Annie Walker. Lesser landladies, Natalie Horrocks and the hapless Vera Duckworth are not as memorable and we won't even give a side glance at Ms. Price who faltered before she even rounded the first stretch of the track. Shelly Unwin, a manager under Fred Elliott had potential but never had her name over the door and Becky McDonald, Steve's (4th?) wife was far too volatile to be one of the greats. 

Steve's marriage to Michelle has been on rocky ground for a long time and his one night stand and subsequent paternal revelation was the straw that broke the back of that union. Michelle was bent on financial revenge so Steve buckled down and put the pub up for sale. Even though he wouldn't have to fight for the right to see baby Oliver after all, Liz ended up selling her share as well and is taking a job at the medical clinic while Steve still has Streetcars to run with his partner Tim.

It's a shame, really. But with a new producer, things always change. I'm not so sure about the sale of the pub to alcoholic Peter Barlow. Even if he knows that if he drinks again, it will likely kill him after that last binge in the prison drinking bootleg moonshine, the temptation is there. And his partner, Toyah Battersby will be the landlady. A mere shadow of the former greats, is Toyah. Oh, she used to have spark and the Toyah we knew 15 years ago, back when she was a barmaid at the pub, probably would have had us nodding collectively and speculating that she might make a good landlady someday.

Toyah is much changed from those days. She shows the occasional flashback to the Little Madam she was but I can't see that she'll be comfortable behind that bar. She's not blonde for one thing. The best landladies have always been blonde (well, ok, most of best ones). She scowls. She's a bit of a whiner. She'll probably nag the life out of Peter who will probably start spending a lot of time down in the cellar with the racing form a la Jack Duckworth. She just doesn't have that air of authority.

We aren't losing Liz from the Street. She and Steve will be living in the Streetcars' flat but it will seem strange not to see her behind the bar.

Let's all raise a glass to Liz McDonald, one of the best landladies the Rovers Return has ever seen.


Thanks to Corriepedia and Corrie.net.

Tvor (Twitter @tvordlj)

Revenge is Sweet

One of the staple storylines in a soap is the love triangle. Another is revenge. Sometimes one is a result of the other but not always. The most recent revenge storyline in Coronation Street was about love but also betrayal of a different kind.

Let's recap: Tony Stewart and Liz McDonald are a couple. For the first time in a long time, Liz seems to have picked a man that she was really passionate about. That's probably because Tony had a dangerous edge and Liz likes that in a man. She gets bored with the good guys after awhile. As much as I really liked she and Lloyd together, he wasn't exciting enough for her. Tony was.



Tony also had a good side. He's matured since he and Eileen split up years ago. He finally came back into his son Jason's life and wanted to have a real father-son relationship. He had bridges to build and slowly, he did it. He financed the builder's yard for Jason and he bailed out Steve when the tax man came knocking after Steve's illness caused him to overspend and ignore the pub's finances.

But like most men on Corrie, Tony was weak, too. He started to feel a bit taken for granted, a bit used and he was ripe for the picking when Tracy Barlow wanted comfort after her fiance was nicked for murder and jailed. There is no love lost between Tracy and Liz, long time adversaries due to Tracy's history with Steve so having a fling with Liz's fella just added to the enticement. But Tracy got greedy and started to infect Tony with her need to lord it over everyone. She wanted the Rovers and she knew how to get it, by using Tony as her man behind the scenes.

Tony pretended to be in financial straits which would be solved if Steve paid back the money Tony loaned him. But Steve couldn't afford to do that. Tony found a company that would buy Steve's share but would leave them to manage it. Tony owned that company of course. He bought half the pub and got his loan returned as well. Sweet. Now he had to convince Liz to sell her half and he nearly succeeded.

Michelle was heartbroken that they would lose the pub even if they got to stay and run it. Her BFF Carla offered to buy Liz's share and they stopped the sale at the last minute. The day after the offer was made, Steve and Michelle got married and went on honeymoon so they never found out what Liz discovered the day of the wedding, that Tracy and Tony had an affair and were behind the takeover of the pub. Tracy was so pissed off that they lost the chance of owning the pub at the last minute that she went straight to Liz and spilled the beans. Tony skipped town before Liz could confront him but he knew she knew because of the message she'd left him.

Carla never did actually sign the papers, it turns out, so Liz still owned her share of the pub but Tony owned the other half. Tony came slinking back a few months later, very sorry. Nobody was willing to forgive him, least of all Liz. Tony persisted. He was willing to do anything to win her back and make it up to Steve, too, in the name of keeping peace in the family.

Little by little, Liz seemed to be coming around. She accepted that he regretted his lapse in reason with the affair but it was harder to get her head around the scheme to take the pub away from her and her family but Tony thought he had finally talked her around and so did everyone else. It was almost believable. There were no side looks over Tony's shoulder, no narrowing of the eyes or maniacal wringing of the hands or  twirling of the metaphorical moustaches involved. Bev Callard was far more subtle than that. Viewers thought they caught a glint in her eye now and then but couldn't be sure.

A number of viewers had predicted that she was luring Tony in for the fall, me included. That pub means everything to Liz and she would defend her family like a lioness. For me, the definitive moment was when she told her friends who were trying to make her see sense that she had to do what she had to do. I thought that if it was real, she'd have proclaimed something about following her heart, and a lot more passionately than she was doing. It almost felt like grim determination when she said what she said. I thought "A ha!!! here it comes!"

Sure enough, here it came. After she verified the contract that Tony signed, handing the pub back to her and Steve completely, Tony thought he had proven himself to the woman he loved.  She didn't expect Tony to then go down on one knee and propose but it probably made it all the better. She exposed him in front of everyone in the pub because that's what you do, isn't it! Publicly humiliate someone. And he deserved that at the very least after what he'd done to her.

Tony was shocked. He was confused. He looked around and saw surprise turn to glee on the faces of Liz's loved ones. They weren't in on the plot. Even Liz and Tracy Barlow seemed to be in agreement for once. Liz, a normally honest woman, took a page out of Tracy's book. She schemed and lied like a pro even though it was hard for her.

She persisted and she came out on top. Tony knew he was defeated. He didn't even get angry that he was duped out of the pub. He'd cleaned Tracy's business bank account out to get himself out of that partnership and that's pretty much all he was walking away with. And walk away he did, calling everyone pathetic on the way out. Not much of a dignified exit but it was all he could muster.

The champagne cork was popped. Liz and Michelle celebrated as did Steve who was in Spain with his brother. Liz didn't have regrets. If it had just been an affair... but it was more than that. She found it difficult lying but did what she had to do.

Revenge is sweet.


Tvor (Twitter @tvordlj)

A Potted History of the Rovers Return

To commemorate the destruction of the heart of Coronation Street, the burning of the Rovers Return, let's look back on it's history a bit:

The name over the door when the show began was John (Jack) Walker and he and his lady wife, Annie, reigned supreme. At the time, the pub had a small main bar and a little cubbyhole called The Snug and there was another room, the Select, used for parties and private functions. There were bedrooms upstairs and a sitting room and kitchen behind the bar.

During the 60s, the Rovers entertained unusual guests, the most unlikely being a pair of seals in the bath, put there by Dennis Tanner while the Walkers were out for the night. They came back early and Annie was horrified to find two creatures in her bathtub when all she wanted to do was put her feet up and have a hot soak.

In the 70s, after the death of Jack Walker, Annie carried on alone, sometimes with the aid of son Billy. She fielded the break-in by a couple of young thugs looking for ready cash. Other uninvited guests were Stan Ogden and Albert Tatlock who found themselves locked in the cellar one night. The pub was in danger of destruction once when a lorry full of wood crashed into the front. Deirdre thought Tracy was under the rubble in her pram but someone had walked away with her just in time. Alf Roberts wasn't so lucky. He sustained a head injury that changed his personality for awhile, making his wife, Renee, despair.

The 80s saw Bet Lynch take over the pub when Annie retired. Bet held down the fort for a couple of years on her own and this was about the time that the Rovers was devastated by it's first fire, in 1986. It was caused by Jack Duckworth who installed the wrong type of fuse which then shorted out. When the Rovers was rebuilt and reopened, it looked very different. The snug and Select were gone and there was only one large bar area. The staircase went to the second level from a different direction, as well.

Bet married Alec Gilroy and they ran the pub together but their marraige fell apart in the early 90s. Bet carried on for a few more years but by the middle of the decade, the brewery decided to sell the pub and she couldn't raise the money to buy it. She did a flit in a cab and the pub's ownership came down to a last minute race between Liz and Jim McDonald and Jack and Vera Duckworth. Jack and Vera got the cash from an inheritance from Jack's brother and managed to snag ownership but they made a hash of it soon enough. Alec Gilroy bailed them out for a bit but ended up selling to Natalie Barnes.

When Natalie's life went into a tailspin she sold to a triumvirate of Fred Elliot, Duggie Fergusson and Mike Baldwin. Duggie ran the place for a few years on his own after Mike and Fred backed out. But later in the first decade of the new century, the name over the door fell to Fred Elliott, local butcher.

By the end of the decade, Fred decided to sell the pub as he was getting married to Bev Unwin but he died on his wedding day. Steve McDonald had already started negotiations to buy the pub and did so from Fred's son Ashley. Steve's mother Liz had the licensee for the pub since Steve had a criminal record from when he was younger.

Liz and her fiance Vernon made the most recent major change to the pub when they built a smoking shelter out in the back yard with a separate exit into it when the law changed and punters couldn't smoke inside the bar any more. Also, during this period, the Rovers seemed to have gained a mini-flat in the upstairs living area, with a sitting room and small kitchen. It hasn't been seen since Stella took over the pub and she spends all of her leisure time in the traditional back room of the Rovers.

Steve fell on hard finances when his wife Becky got out of control trying to scrape the money together to pay her sister Kylie so she could raise Kylie's son, Max. When his dad Jim took desperate measures and got nicked for armed robbery when he tried to raise money to buy the pub from Steve for his beloved ex-wife, Liz, Steve hired a manager, Stella Price and later at the cusp of the second decade of the new millennium, sold the pub to Stella.

Over the years, we've had three babies born in the pub. Tricia Armstrong gave birth to little Brad, Violet Wilson had baby Dylan and recently, Kirsty Soames delivered baby Ruby on the premises. The first death in the Rovers was in 1964 when Martha Longhurst died in the snug of a heart attack. Ray Langton, suffering from cancer, died in a booth at the wedding reception of his ex-wife Deirdre to Ken Barlow. Very recently we saw Eric Babbage pop his clogs in the very same booth.

There have been far too many barmaids, cleaners, potmen and other staff to mention them all. We should take a special mention however, of the very first barmaid, Concepta Riley and the longest standing and best loved barmaid, Betty Turpin Williams who made the Rovers famous for it's Hotpot! The best known cleaner has to be Hilda Ogden whose husband Stan certainly added greatly to the profits over his years drinking and propping up the bar!

The pub has always been at the center of the action. There have been many romances begin and end here. There have been bust ups and punches and lots of ale thrown over the heads of hapless victims. There have been entertainment shows, and confrontations which might have been even more entertaining! Babies have been born, people have died, weddings have been celebrated and funeral goers have reflected on the life of the departed over a drink.

There was controversy when Betty Williams died, apparently the de facto owner of the pub as bequeathed to her by Annie Walker but that isn't possible. Newton and Ridley owned the pub and the license is not hereditary. Here's a bit of history about the changeover after Annie Walker died, gleaned from one of Daran Little's books on Corrie's history.

Will the Rovers rise from the ashes again? To be sure it, will. There cannot be a Coronation Street without the Rovers Return Inn. It will be interesting to see how much changes. Will the bar itself be completely new? Will the layout of the rooms change? Will we still have that lovely stained glass in the booths?  Time will tell. 

Eve of Destruction

We all know the pub is going to "burn down". It's not going to burn to the ground literally. It's a brick building. But it will burn and it will be gutted out enough for a total renovation inside. Time to freshen up the set before the ITV studios move, I guess!

While it won't be destruction on the scale of the tram crash, we are heading into another disaster on Coronation Street. This week has the pieces of the puzzle being put into place and Monday will see them on the board in play.

We have the slow burn of Karl's resentment that's been building up for weeks now. Stella refuses to have him back and is flaunting Jason in his face, or so it feels to him. He has tried to make Jason look bad in Stella's eyes, he's tried to ruin Jason's business and it seems he's done that but it's backfired since Jason has moved into the pub and Stella's going to give him a job behind the bar. (What about Tim, I want to know?) He blames Sunita for his downfall, refusing to take any responsibility for his own actions. Now it looks like Dev and Sunita are back together and Jason is in his rightful place in the pub.

The pub had a leaky pipe, made worse by Tim who didn't turn the water off first like he was supposed to. The water went everywhere and Karl made sure it went into the electrical panel to short out the electricity to the pub. There! That'll put a wrench into the pub's business and make it look like it was Jason's fault. It didn't, though. And the pub reopened with water and candlelights and everyone had a great evening. Foiled again!

Karl even joined the Full Monty team because he knew Jason was doing it and maybe he thought he could do something else to make Jason look bad, I don't know.

Sophie has maneuvered Sunita and Dev back together. It was a bumpy road but it looked like it was going to happen. Dev drags Sunita into the pub to show off to the world that they've reunited, exactly what Sunita didn't want, dreading the reactions of the neighbours but mostly, they were surprised but silent.

All except for Stella who curlishly stirred up Dev's worst fears about Sunita. Why did she do that? Aside from asking him was he sure, she had no business as a friend or otherwise to put doubts in his mind and insult Sunita. Stella is supposed to be happy with Jason and Karl is ruined. Why does she feel the need to stop Dev and Sunita from getting back together? Move on, woman and if you can't, what does that say about your own life?

That aside, Dev is now showing his doubts to Sunita who isn't going to take it well. From spoilers we've seen and heard, she's going to blame Stella for ruining her reunion. There's going to be public threats and when the pub goes up in flames, is she going to be the first one suspected of arson? It seems so since Karl has been careful not to make any public declarations where anyone can hear. He's looking shifty, resentful and very, very angry though.

It's a given that the pub is going to burn. Is it an accident due to the water on the electrics? I'm guessing it is. The writers can't really think of a new plot device and accidental destruction worked the last time the pub went up in smoke in 1986 when Jack Duckworth put the wrong fuse in the fusebox. Put a little water in the wrong spot and surely that's enough to spark up a fire?

Ah, except it *was* done on purpose. I don't expect Karl thought it would cause a fire, just enough mayhem to cause trouble between Stella and Jason. It'll have to come out eventually. We've not heard that John Michie is leaving but how can he not after this? It might have been truly unintended so he may just do a short stint in jail instead.

I am looking forward to the drama, the tragedy and the new pub.

The Rovers Landladies - the Runners Up

I, like many others, have not really warmed up to St. Ella of the Back room (aka Stella Price). Graeme blogged on the Coronation Street Blogthat he feels she’s a weak landlady when compared against classics like Bet Lynch and Annie Walker. They were the two most iconic landladies, for sure, but let’s not forget Vera Duckworth’s stint, which was a disaster from the word Go, Natalie Horrocks, the scarlet woman, and, another of my favourite characters, Liz McDonald. 

Vera’s sojourn as landlady was bound to fail. The Duckies were trying to be upwardly mobile, trying to make something of themselves for once, but as usual, they didn’t have the savvy to make it work. Book keeping, VAT, and their tendency to take the profits out of the till led to their downfall. It was fun to watch them but we always knew there was a limited shelf life for Vera as the Queen Bee. Still, even though she lurched from crisis to crisis, she was a wonderful character just the same. 

Natalie Horrocks was the woman that chased Kevin Webster and broke up the happy home of Kevin, Sally and the gurls. She was branded as a homewrecker and, indeed, that’s exactly what she was. She was the chaser, not the chased and let’s not get that mixed up with “chaste” because she most certainly wasn’t. Blonde, as all landladies of the Rovers must be, Natalie was probably one of the lesser landladies but still had the strength and vulnerability to carry it off. You grew to like her but perhaps Natalie was softened up a bit too much after her hard-faced introduction, and she seemed to become a bit too vulnerable for the job. She buckled under the strain and left. The talented Denise Welch played Natalie and was perfect for the character. 

Shelley Unwin was the bar manager and landlady de-facto for a few years. That was during the trifectorate of Duggie, Mike and Fred. Mike bowed out early on and Duggie played mein host, bringing Shelley in to mind the shop. Shelley was a great manager. She was blonde, of course, pretty, sparky and strong most of the time. She was confident and friendly and knew her way around a bar. She had a confidence knock back, first after new husband Peter Barlow turned out to be a bigamist and then  at the emotional hands of Charlie Stubbs and it was all downhill from there. She got her mojo back and decided a fresh start  away from Weatherfield was in order. 

Fred Elliott continued to run the bar but had so many irons in the fire that he brought in Steve McDonald’s mother, Liz  to manage the pub. Liz had worked at the Rovers several times in the past and fit the part like a glove. She, too, was blonde, this time around anyway, and gave it her all. She loved the Rovers and when Steve bought the pub after Fred died, she finally got her name over the door as licensee due to Steve’s criminal record, "Elizabeth Jane McDonald".

I think Liz is the next best of the classic iconic landladies after Annie Walker and Bet Lynch. Liz had the guts, she had the glory, she had the jubilant highs and crushing lows and still she put on a smile and greeted the punters like a pro. Liz had history in the community. She had friends and family, not just newly made up connections. She had lived in the Street for many years off and on.  She survived, she bounced back, she had terrible dress sense but we loved her anyway!

Liz fought for her family and for her business many a time. When daughter-in-law Becky’s actions threatened her livelihood, she broke out the claws and defended her bricks and mortar chick. But in the end, when her ex-husband Jim’s attempts at buying the pub to bail Steve out of a debt that Becky had instigated failed in a spectacularly botched bank robbery, she left town with tail between her legs in a  classic landlady leaving moment. A darkened room, memories surrounding her, she shut off the lights and got into a cab, doing a moonlit flit. 

In some ways, Liz may even be my favourite, certainly favourite of the post-Bet landladies and landlords. When the trifecta of men owned the pub, even when Fred alone owned it and had a manager in place, it just wasn’t the same without that woman’s name over the door.

There have been other managers and short-lived wannabes (The marvellous Lillian! Fred’s bigamist wife, Eve Sykes.) but they didn’t make the grade in the long haul. Even the 40+ tenure of Betty Turpin Williams (no matter what any rewrite of history may say)  only had her in as temporary manager now and then. None of these women were blondes and therefore not contenders from the start. Liz had the grit and the glamour and the door has been left open for her return. 

I continue to hope.