Five Days is a long time in tellyland

CHANNEL HOPPING: AN array of acting talent, intriguing storyline and prime-time on the BBC five nights a week... so why did “Five Days” promise so much then go all skew-whiff at the end?

This tense mix of seemingly unconnected events — an abandoned baby, train journey from hell and underlying terror plot — was gripping from day one. And two. By day three it was, well, complicated. Four — confusing . . . and five? Let’s just say it was a long week — all-star cast or no all-star cast.

You have to feel sorry for Suranne Jones. The former Red Barn barmaid from Chadderton ditched Broadway for Weatherfield then wound up married to Steve McDonald.

She was a freed murderer last time out in “Unforgiven” and finished this one with a leg in a cast.

But whatever her past, as DC Laurie Franklin, our Suranne certainly proved worthy of a climb up the ranks.

Without a Chaddy lass to piece everything together, BBC1’s Yorkshire mini-drama wouldn’t have lasted two minutes, let alone five days.


THINGS didn’t get much cheerier on the cobbles. In fact, it was downright hairy. Becky lost the baby, Peter ditched re-hab in search of his abducted six-year-old and Gail continued to sink deeper into the grasp of the boys in blue. Norris did get a wig from scary Mary for his birthday — but hair of the dog is more Peter’s cup of tea.

And I always suspected Weatherfield had its own micro-climate. Only in Soapland could heavy snowfall come down in the middle of March. At this rate, Peter will be taking bets on a white Easter.


WE’LL excuse moping Max for being equally grim in Walford, it was his son’s funeral after all. But when poor old Jim saw the hearse, he thought his mini-cab had arrived. One of the cards on “Star Trek” nut Bradley’s flowers read: “Beam me up”. Nice touch.

More predictably, however, was Lucy’s I’ll-have-the-baby-and-you-can-flamin’-well-look-after-it poser for adoption-seeking Jane. Didn’t see that one coming.

Soap roar: “Guilty . . . of persistent scrounging, constant sponging and being in the possession of a face that could frighten kids.” Corrie’s Kelly Crabtree on Theresa’s work trial in the factory.

Soap bore: The returning Carol Jackson in “EastEnders”. What a moaning Minnie. Don’t even think about it Billy.