In the spirit of their early Christmas, Billy Mayhew has bought festive jumpers for himself and Paul Foreman. Billy’s jumper depicts Jesus with a Happy Birthday hat and a party blower, while Paul’s features a skiing Santa. Dev Alahan is also in seasonal garb at The Corner Shop, dressed as an elf. The revellers gather at No 5, where Bernie Winter knocks the Christmas tree over after Gemma and Chesney Winter-Brown’s son Aled throws an elf-themed football at her. ‘Steady on, Ronaldo,’ says Paul, while Bernie complains the house has been turned into Old Trafford (although Manchester United’s current crop of strikers don’t hit the target anywhere near as accurately as Aled). The chaos reminds Paul and Gemma of their childhood Christmases, which involved the dog eating the turkey, presents being wrapped in newspaper featuring Page 3 girls, and Paul drooling over male models in the Grattan catalogue. When Bernie reminisces about Paul’s most miserable Christmas, he thinks her story sounds like the tale of Scrooge from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Young Paul had been unhappy because he didn’t get the toy he wanted. Movingly, Bernie dips into a bag and pulls out the present her son yearned for all those years ago – Tekno The Robotic Puppy, who was THE prezzie of choice in 2000.
At Speed Daal, Asha Alahan is bigging up her partner Nina Lucas to her work colleagues Isla Gibbs and Miles Tobin. She tells them Nina’s a fashion designer, who’s influenced by the likes of US designer Maisie Schloss. But then Nina arrives and says she works in a cafe. At the festive bash, everyone joins in a rendition of the song It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas, which has been a hit for, among others, Perry Como and Michael Buble. Dev shares a cracker joke about The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe, which is met with great hilarity when he delivers the ‘Narnia business’ punchline. Back at Speed Daal, Nina clarifies that she did some design work for Underworld, but she insists she’s no Vivienne Westwood. It’s beginning to look a lot like Asha is embarrassed by Nina’s catering job. Later, as Nina reads Dickens’ Bleak House, Asha apologises for misrepresenting her. But like the character in Bleak House who expired as a result of spontaneous combustion, the agitation between the pair continues to smoulder.
There’s another party going on at Lauren Bolton’s flat in the precinct, where she’s celebrating her 18th birthday with Max Turner and Sabrina Adetiba. They’re playing the surgery game Operation, which first made its way into Christmas stockings in 1965. Lauren doesn’t prove to be surgeon material, though. ‘Another one for the morgue,’ says Sabrina, as the birthday girl botches an op.
Coronation Street episode 11125/11126. Originally aired 1st Dec 2023.
