Just leave it alone. Coronation Street already resembles a battered teddy bear. Remove any more of its stuffing - with promotions, episodes and spin-offs – and only a dead-eyed husk will remain.

This is not a “creative and imaginative way of exploiting the brand”, but a cynical and quease-making attempt to cash in on viewer loyalty. We don’t need Rovers Return pubs, principally because we like suspending our disbelief to invest five times a week in the original. It is Britain’s most famous pub, the heart of Coronation Street and popular drama as a whole – a crucible of drama that for nearly 50 years has been absolutely central to every key story and plot development in The Street. Martha Longhurst died in the snug here, the camera lingering on her glasses. Annie Walker ruled with a regal rod of iron. Bet Gilroy was rescued from an upstairs fire in her nightie. Charlie Stubbs’s psychological torture of Shelley was conducted under the noses of regulars. Ken Barlow and Mike Baldwin punched each other. It is a wellspring of gossip, threats, romance and intrigue and currently the backdrop for a dramatically unsatisfying storyline around the reemergence of the biological son of barmaid Michelle following a long-ago baby switch.

The Rovers is the template for every soap pub, which in turn is the cornerstone of that soap: EastEnders has the Vic, where Michelle conceived Vicky with Den (who was eventually murdered and buried there); where Peggy went mad with a baseball bat and Stella tortured Ben with hot spoons. The Woolpack in Emmerdale has survived a plane crash, and in The Archers Sid and Jolene, under Lilian’s interfering aegis, run The Bull - the original, but utterly eclipsed, serial hostelry.

The Rovers cannot be replicated in a theme pub, it would be a calumny - and a huge insult to the writers and actors who bring such vivid life to its incarnation. Real life is infinitely duller. Unless there’s a Norris and Blanche in every outlet, the plan’s a dud.

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