SOAP WATCH

JACI STEPHEN’S ultimate insight into the week’s soaps

There is no middle ground, no grey area, in sexual relationships in soapland. Unlike in real life, where people tend to inhabit not so much 50, as a million shades of grey, soap characters live in extremes. You are either all in, passionate and dangerously on the edge, or weeping in a corner, plotting against your ex.

Coronation Street’s Nick wouldn’t be able to pick out the colour grey if it appeared in a lineup of rainbows. He’s been married, remarried, un- engaged – all of which make his brain damage seem the least of his problems. This week he talked Leanne back into his life, although why he had to make such a mad dash to Manchester’s bus station was a mystery, given that Liverpool, where she was heading, is a mere 35 miles away. Given how much he’s been jogging recently, he could have legged it and still beaten the bus to the other end.

In EastEnders, we know that Ronnie’s relationship with Jack will be short-lived ( just as it was before), and Emmerdale’s couples live in a permanent cauldron of doom. Thank heavens we have the greyness of real life to keep us sane.