Desperate Soapy Measures
The war of the soaps has now taken a retro twist. With
The actors’ obvious chemistry was what persuaded the bosses to bring them back..
Famous for her ear splitting howl, ‘Rickaaaaaaaaay!’, Bianca returned to the Square at the end of March and brought her twelve adorable kids with her. Rusty Gingetinge, the actress who plays Bianca, explained the thinking behind her decision to finally cave in and go crawling back to the Square. “Well, it’s really quite simple. I was broke and the last performance I did of any merit was the one I gave at one in the morning on the southbound platform of Potters Bar railway station on some guy called Brandon. Best paid gig I’d had for a year, actually. Then the BBC called and, well, the rent ain’t going to pay itself and I’ve got hair dye to buy. Decision made. Shame I’ve got to team up again with that Sid James or whoever he is but beggars can’t be choosers.”
Eastenders producers have heralded Ricky and Bianca’s return to Walford as ‘just the beginning’ in their quest to usher back past stars of the show. Although nothing is confirmed as yet, rumours are rife that Simon Wicks, Kathy Beale, Meeechelle Fowler and James Wilmot-Brown are all primed for comebacks. Nick Berry, who played Simon Wicks for forty three years, was recently quoted as saying, “I don’t know what I’d say if asked to return. Obviously I’m snowed under at the moment what with Celebrity Nipple Clamps on the S & M Channel and my recurring role as Man in Background Sipping Coffee in Dysfunction Grove on The Bottom of the Barrel Channel, so it’d be a case of fitting it in…if they could afford me, of course.”
Coronation Street are no strangers to radical approaches to winning ratings wars, having in recent years drafted in Peter Kay and Oscar winning wizard, Lord Ian McGandalf for cameos. The recent developments at the BBC do not, apparently, have them worried though. Ned Bedhead, Director of Tinpot Output at ITV, told us, “If the BBC want to resort to rolling out former ‘stars’ and re-introducing old characters, then that’s there lookout. We at ITV prefer to take a more forward thinking approach to programme development. Only today in fact, we discussed the possibility of actually killing one of the actors during a live show, to indicate just how committed we are to making Corrie as grittily realistic as possible.”
Although no names were mentioned regarding the possible on-air slaughter, we have it on good authority that at least four of the show’s cast have withdrawn their demands for pay increases with immediate effect. NJ