Coronation Street (ITV1)

It was never going to be the easiest of wedding days. Tony Gordon had already had his wife-to-be Carla’s true love, Liam, murdered. Rosie Webster — her evil now back on full beam after being temporarily incarcerated by another Coronation Street madman — had pictures of Liam and Carla kissing on her phone. Tony had seen the pictures, Carla had not. Twisted Tony is such a pantomime villain (his eyes rotate at the slightest provocation) that it’s a wonder he has evaded capture.

But this is a soap so we shouldn’t wonder too hard at its implausibilities — still less when we hear that in the coming weeks Maria, Liam’s grief-stricken wife, turns detective to find out the truth about Liam’s death. This is a plot twist to rival Fallon getting beamed up in a UFO in The Colbys. Maria is known for many things (her terrible choice in men and grating niceness) but her powers of logic and reason have never been much in evidence.

Tony’s time seems borrowed: he looked terrified at his wedding, though claimed he felt like “the cat that got the cream”. His brother revealed that he used to kidnap his Action Man and leave ransom notes on his pillow. That nice old man he brutally ejected from his home has washed up in Coronation Street and has become the latest charity case of Emily Bishop. You don’t mess with Emily Bishop.

Tony has also offended Sally Webster. For years Sally has striven to be better than anyone else only to end up — in the rigid Aristotelian logic of the Street — sewing knickers at the factory. (How big is that knicker factory? Years ago it held Vera Duckworth, Ivy Tilsley and Ida Clough. It has somehow mushroomed to the size of Longbridge.)

Sally has class issues. So initially her deference was ramped up to the max for Carla and Tony’s big day, and its shellfish and avocado buffet. Janice Battersby said there was no way she was eating the sashimi. “Women like me don’t grow on trees,” she told the Greek chorus of factory girls. “No, they just swing from them,” Sally replied rather brilliantly.

Sally purred her thanks and gratitude for an invitation, even though Tony had tried to destroy her husband Kevin’s business. Then she spilt some avocado on Carla’s wedding dress, provoking Carla to note that Sally’s family “didn’t usually come to places with metal cutlery”. Duly insulted (Kevin may be a grease monkey, but he is her grease monkey), Sally showed Maria the phone video of Carla and Tony kissing. Poor Maria: she really is the go-to girl when it comes to sniffling and suffering.

At this point things went very Bonnie Tyler video. Maria started literally wailing and gnashing her teeth, and charged through the hotel shouting “Carlaaaaaaa!” as an incidental pop track played and the camera assumed a series of static positions behind flower displays. She ripped a string of pearls from her neck. Only the dry ice was missing. We were denied a catfight as Carla and Tony escaped the wrath of the mouse that roared and headed off on honeymoon. If Tony Gordon should suddenly die, look for a pair of smouldering curling tongs near by.

Beehive (E4)

Beehive, an all-female sketch show, is as hit and miss as perhaps sketch shows should be allowed to be: they feel quaint now, maybe because the best kind of TV comedy has moved away from sketch to the episodic format of drama. Beehive is the creation of an all-female ensemble, and the best sketch saw all four of them play the Sex and the City characters as the foul-mouthed and/or stupid, one-note caricatures that they have become.

They drank champagne and mounted lamp-posts and loudly declared: “We have sex.” Samantha fellated the pepper pot at their restaurant table and asked the waiter to sit on her face. “Charlotte” asked the group: “I touched a man’s shoe. Do you think he wants to marry me?” “Carrie” piped up with one of her classic nonobservations: “Men have pockets.” Miranda’s phone rang: “I have a job. Goodbye!” she said. (A group of drag queens once created a more foul-mouthed, but equally funny, pastiche.)

The other sketches felt a little rackety, not quite there. The two bitchy air stewardesses who insulted passengers were kind of funny but kind of one-note. One woman who complained of feeling unwell got a litany of vicious and patronising clucking for being single and childless. A slurring woman who’d had a stroke was accused of being drunk.

It seems odd for all four to dress up as Russell Brand and hop about in Byronic drag and play the jape as a silent movie when Brand is known for his controversy-generating motormouth. Their streettalking Queen Victoria (“Disraeli’s been runnin’ his mouth off at me”) was a little close to Armstrong and Miller’s street-talking wartime airmen. But a final sketch that saw a classical quartet’s sex and drugs orgy with two elderly fans was very funny indeed. So, on balance, more hits than misses.

tim.teeman@thetimes.co.uk

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