Teddy Thompkins butts in as Stephen Reid and Elaine Jones are chatting at The Rovers. What’s the pressing topic he’s so keen to talk about? The disappearance of his son Leo? Memory fragments he’s recalled after his injury? No. Teddy is eager to resurrect an earlier conversation he had with Stephen about who were the best group, The Beatles or The Rolling Stones. Stephen favours the Fab Four, while Teddy prefers the Stones. Teddy also wants up weigh up the relative merits of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Sticky Fingers.
From fingers to fins. Fiz and Tyrone Dobbs tell their kids Hope and Ruby they can get a fish as a pet. They rush off to the pet shop to a musical accompaniment of the Theme From Jaws, as performed by Evelyn Plummer with the help of a newspaper prop designed to look like a shark’s fin. Back at The Rovers, a disgruntled Elaine leaves Teddy and Stephen to their musical debate. She has a parting shot, though. ‘Just for your information,’ she says, ‘The Beatles were much better than the Stones. By a mile.’ As soon as Elaine has gone, Teddy reveals he only started the Beatles vs Stones chat to rescue Stephen from the obligation of having lunch with Elaine. Like The Beatles sang in Help, Stephen says he appreciates him being around.
Tyrone and the girls return from the pet shop with a chinchilla called Cilla, which is most definitely not a fish. Fiz wants to know why she wasn’t consulted, but Evelyn wisely points out – albeit via a courageous pun relating to the fable The Three Little Pigs – that Fiz would only have said: ‘Not by the hairs of my chinny chinchilla.’
Coronation Street episode 10854/55. Originally aired 18th Jan 2023.
