Coronation Street

Thursday 9 June 2011 (one half hour episode)

Review by Emma Shane ©June 2011

In the course of this half hour programme, there are three scenes in a courtroom, where the central character Fiona Stape (known as Fiz) is the defendant accused of making a fraudulent statement to a solicitor.

Louise Gold plays the judge hearing the case. There character has no name and is simply credited as the Judge.

During the first of the three courtroom scenes, Louise does not speak. Much of this scene is taken up with the various characters who are attending arriving. One woman tries to offer the gentleman she is with biscuits out of a plastic box, but he is not interested because he is trying to follow the case. He remarks that he’s seen this judge before and “she’s as sharp as a flick knife”. Presently the defendant is ushered in and charges are read out. I found it a little puzzling that that woman was allowed to be handing round food-stuffs in a courtroom, let alone the fact that she and a few others were chattering among themselves while the charges were being read out. Surely one might have expected a judge not to allow that sort of behaviour. However, all we see from the judge is her expressive face listening to the charges.

All the court officials are of course dressed in black; but are not wearing formal wigs.

I could not tell if Louise’s hair was her own dark chestnut mop relatively dampened down (so as not to look wild) or a wig. But it could have been her own curls.

The second scene actually finds Louise getting to speak. Informing Fiona that she is sentencing her to be tried at Weatherfield Crown Court for fraud. That is not good for Fiona. The gentlemen who had been offered the biscuits earlier turns to his partner and says “What did I tell you?”

The third and final scene also has Louise speaking. This time gravely and without emotion, she says that she will now hear the application for bail. The prosecuting solicitor, Miss Jones, speaks against bail, largely on the basis that it is a fast moving case and the defendant is also suspected of murder. However the defending solicitor pleas for bail on the basis that the defendant, having a young baby in poor health is unlikely to abscond, and also that imprisoning Fiona could make her child’s health worse. The Judge gravely thanks both of them, and then surprises a little by granting bail (well the gentleman who was offered the biscuits remarks that everyone has their off-days). The Judge continues with the conditions of bail, saying to Fiona. “That you continue to reside at five Coronation Street, and report to a Police Station once a week”.

Throughout the three scenes Louise, though a deft mistress of accents, basically uses something more like her own normal speaking voice. She plays the role perfectly satisfactorily, though as a part it seems a somewhat surprising one for her to be playing, since it does not make much use of her versatile capabilities as an actress. For example she has no opportunity, on this occasion, to act others off the screen, which is a shame, seeing as Louise has a very unusual ability in that department (a trait she and her brother both inherited from their mother); and it’s always a shame if she doesn’t get a chance to use that. Nevertheless its good to see her get a little role on prime time television. Perhaps nowadays Corrie doesn’t have quite the sort of sway it held back in 1979 (when the public were even discussing the ACTT strike in railway stations simply because it took Corrie off the air for weeks). Nevertheless it is still the longest running British soap opera, and indeed now the longest running soap opera in the world.

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