I am no fan of the late Poet Laureate John Betjeman, but my ex told me today the old closet had once remarked that Granada's Coronation Street set was kept under tight security because 'so many people want to live there'. Ugh! Well, be all that is it may, it cannot be denied it has - after 43 years - a long and large following.

Among those devotees are many gays Bosie and I know. So the recent revelation in The Daily Star, a periodical we have never bought but chanced to read in a public house recently, that Corrie is about to show its first gay kiss came as a surprise.

There is no surprise that a soap should show gay intimacy. This has been done before, and the precedent was set some years ago. Emmerdale, East Enders and our more local Brookside have all shown gay or lesbian closeness, and Hollyoaks carried a sensitively-handled male-on-male rape.

Shock horror?
So why am I so surprised that the venerable mother-of-all-soaps, Coronation Street, should be doing this now? First, because I cannot understand why this banal tripe is still going at all, given that its characters do not represent their supposed native suburban Lancashire in a remotely flattering light. Delicately cooked, tripe is a more worthy ambassador for this noble County Palatine.

With its ham acting and, in some cases, wooden warhorse characters that have been around since its distant inception, its portrayal of a way of life that may have existed in the parochial, provincial and inward-looking 1950s is an inversion of most of the realities that confront most Mancunians, let alone anyone else in Lancashire or the rest of the UK, in the first decade of a new millennium.

Second, I cannot believe that the series' producers and managers have missed the blindingly obvious for so long. Are they total ostriches? Perhaps sponsors Cadburys, who after all came from a teetotal and strict non-conformist background, had not liked the idea. And we don't like their chocolate either.

But third, it is odd that they have chosen to do it - unusually - with some style. Step forward Adam Rickett, icon of gay mags and chicken-hawks, who (as Nicky Platt) is the lucky recipient of the advance by Todd Grimshaw (played by a young Bruno Langley).

Last, I am shocked (as indeed the hang and flog brigade would be too) that the episode is to be shown on a Sunday (5 October). This will be after the 9pm watershed, and an "on-set source" told the Star that "A lot of time will be spent making sure the scene is handled in a sensitive manner." Of course, great-aunt Emily, quite right too. Perhaps the source was also an aged relative, adding that "There are bound to be complaints".

Sensitivity
There is a delicious irony in that the scene's shooting took place, says the Daily Star, just before the world-renowned Europride started in Manchester over the Bank Holiday period. Has no-one at Granada any idea about PR?

The plot
The tabloid goes on to explain that Todd, who has told Sunita that he does not love Sarah any more, plants one on Nicky after a takeaway. What a tacky and unromantic scenario, of course, but this programme is hardly about civilised contemporary life. "I think I'm falling for someone else", he adds, paving the way for the intracrural suspense that teases this spleen-jerker from episode to episode.

"I've never felt like this", says Todd, pointedly and, I hope, without any kebab or curry bits in his pristine molars, or on the lips of poor Nicky. Perhaps there were, since Nicky manages a strangulated "What was that", and flounces out in a way only we queens and dykes can pull off, leaving the soap's bewildered and bored bourgeoisie of an audience reeling, reaching either for hankies or for the phone so as to complain about 'indecency', 'outrage' and 'moral turpitude'.

The hypocrisy
This is Mary Whitehouse's legacy - Middle England preserved, propounded, promulgated and promoted not only by the hypocrisy of the disgraced John Major, and also in prejudice, prudery and pretence. Has it not dawned on the bigots that the law changed in 1967, and a whole range of minor sexual ‘offences’ are presently under revision?

The Daily Star, with its morals barely above its navel, its vision, the Zeitgeist, the vox populi, and the evidence from all quarters that things have changed for gay men and women, our moral guardian from the gutter press has its head firmly in and up places even I have never visited. More, they kindly provided a phone line for readers to register their views on whether the kiss should be screened.

The Star told me last night that the lines were only open for 24 hours, and has not been able to provide me with the pseudo-poll's results, nor does their minimalist website reveal anything of moment. I have no time for this mockery of democracy, and should have told them with all the force and dignity I could muster to stuff the prudes.

But…
Whilst I despise this anti-reality television as much as I despise the current so-called 'reality TV', I am sure that many of our gay friends will be watching it. And I'll tell you a little secret - we shall be too!

Copyright © "Oscar O'Lune" 5 September 2003

the aftermath - read on!

COMMENT – Our Correspondent Oscar O’Lune vindicated as Corrie’s Gay Kiss complaint rejected

“You know I was right …”
Our correspondent gleefully reports that the Independent Television Commission (ITC) has rejected 21 complaints about the gay kiss shown on wrinkly and crinkly Corrie on 5 October (see Oscar's piece above). The ITC considered that “the attempted kiss would not upset the majority of viewers”.

Reading the formal ruling, “You see”, cries an indignant Oscar, “it wasn’t even a successful one”. Concerns about the slighted snog focussed on the fact that the episode was shown before the 9pm watershed. But the ITC was having none of this.

“A young man’s confusion with his sexuality, expressed in a clumsily and inexplicit manner, did not go beyond what has previously been seen in a drama [sic] at this time of the evening”, the report said.

Oscar is turning red. “Of course it was tame and spineless, like the rest of the ghastly series,” he snaps. “But ‘drama’?” squeals an increasingly indignant Oscar. “That is not drama!” But the ITC was right, he conceded, and added triumphantly that “the sanctimonious reservations about the much-vaunted ‘kiss’ in the gutter press have been utterly discredited. That is what I said. You know I was right …”

They have been discredited, we are please to note. And yes, Oscar, you were right.

Update 17/6/04 Lancaster Lesbian & Gay Switchboard have been in touch and we've made a special page with all their info. They've been watching Coronation Street - you can read their comments about it too. Check it out