Coronation Street has been like a slow puncture of late with several plotlines that have wheezed their way onto the screen. Gary and Derek’s armed siege over Christmas, for instance, was weirdly lacking in tension, while all the nonsense involving Gemma, Ches and their quads becoming the corporate playthings of Freshco’s supermarket felt laugh-free. However, I am getting steadily more unsettled by Geoff’s insidious gaslighting of poor Yasmeen, to the extent that I now want to climb into the TV and threaten him with some of those vacuum cleaner attachments he keeps forcing her to use around their already spotless home.

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As we’ve seen, Geoff’s latest ploy to undermine Yasmeen’s confidence has been to make her believe that she’s an alcoholic. But when she attends an AA meeting with a supportive Peter and returns believing that she doesn’t have a problem with drink, Geoff seethes and begins plotting more ways to make his wife doubt her own sanity.

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On Wednesday, though, there’s repetition of a different kind as a pregnant Maria is told by doctors that she’s lost her baby (long-time viewers will recall that, in 2008, she had a stillborn son). But this latest tragedy looks set to become a story about missed vaccinations, thanks to Maria discovering that she’s caught measles from baby Bertie, who hasn’t had his jabs. “Measles is on the rise again and it shouldn’t be,” says actor Samia Longchambon. “Some people are choosing not to vaccinate their children. Obviously, it’s a personal decision but it can have a snowball effect, so it’s really important to show that.”

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Authors

David BrownWriter, Radio Times magazine and RadioTimes.com
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