Stop the wedding Steve! (From The Northern Echo)

Stop the wedding Steve!

4:22pm Thursday 19th January 2012 in Soapwatch By Steve Pratt

THERE’S plenty of bride and gloom is Soapland next week with not one but two weddings and a pregnancy.

In Weatherfield, Terrible Tracy Barlow is the woman in white. But will it be all white on the night? Her love rival Becky is hiding behind a pillar in the church waiting to leap out and spoil Tracy’s big day.

The bride – blushing at the memory of her past misdeeds – is all in white, with daughter Amy as bridesmaid and Ken Barlow ready to walk her down the aisle. At long last, she’s nabbed Steve McDonald as her other half in Coronation Street (ITV1).

But will he go through with it after Becky turns up as an uninvited guest at the church and... well, she really wants to convince her ex, Steve, that Tracy has been lying about her fall down the stairs. She claims Becky pushed her, causing her to have a miscarriage and lose the twins she was expecting (they were Steve’s in case you’ve forgotten). Becky wants to convince Steve she didn’t do it.

The vicar asking the congregation if anyone knows any lawful impediment to Steve and Tracy tying the knot is like a red rag to a bull. Speak up Tracy, we can’t hear you at the back.

Will they, won’t they wed? Whatever happens Becky is ready to leave Steve behind for a new life in Barbados with her new squeeze Danny Boy.

Now that the little matter of who bashed Cain is out of the way in Emmerdale (ITV1), Charity and Jai can get down to their wedding. This isn’t a lavish affair and there are no uninvited guests. There isn’t even the bride. She’s running late, having popped round to make amends with daughter Debbie. They have a fraught relationship but before saying “I do” to Jai, Charity wants to re-establish her maternal rights. Especially as Debbie is with child. Her ex, Randy Handy Andy, did the deed to make a child who might be able to be a bone marrow donor for their sick daughter Sarah.

News of Debbie’s pregnancy doesn’t go down well with her partner Cameron, whom she lied to about sleeping with Andy (although sleeping was the last thing on their mind). Exit Cameron, stage right, and Charity, having begun at home, runs off to the register office to marry Jai.

No weddings but a potential partnership blossoms in EastEnders (BBC1). Lovesick Anthony Moon has been lusting after Amira Masood ever since he saved her from a cockroach (and no, I don’t mean Fill the Fug). Little does he know that devious Amira is using him to make estranged husband, Syed, (who’s having a gay awayday with Christian) jealous. Anyway, she invites Anthony round to meet the Fockers, sorry Masoods, at a jolly little lunch. A bit strange this, arranging for your new boyfriend to share time with your soon-to-be-ex husband’s parents.

Fill the Fug’s not at home, but in prison (something about murdering several people, allegedly) and less than happy to receive a visit from Albert Square’s newest and baddest arrival, Dodgy Derek Branning.

Derek, a man with all the grace and good manners of a one-legged giraffe with a sore throat, is up to no good. Seeing Fill banged up he orders him to hand over all his businesses.

The repercussions if Fill doesn’t obey could be more unpalatable than marrying Terrible Tracy.