Coronation Street
Alya demands cash from Sharif to keep quiet about him and Sonia
Alya Nazir had something of the school prefect about her when she first came to Weatherfield, but it hasn’t taken long for her shiny halo to fall. First came that unsavoury business of losing her virginity to Jason Grimshaw, and this week the Underworld upstart blackmails her own grandad in order to advance her career.
The ambitious glamourpuss resorts to devious measures when Aidan tells her it would cost around £14k to bulk produce her range of posh undies. Alya doesn’t have that kind of cash… but she knows a man who might. And when Sharif begs her to keep quiet about him sleeping with saucy Sonia, she decides to use the situation to her advantage.
‘There are a few aspects to her blackmail,’ explains Sair Khan, who plays Alya. ‘One is that she’s furious with Sharif – he’s got the cash at his disposal because he’s about to buy Sonia a flat, yet he won’t invest in her. Also, she wants to punish him; she doesn’t want him to have his cake and eat it.’
Sharif feels the heat as Alya piles on the pressure and Sonia makes it clear that, regardless of his granddaughter’s demands, she still expects him to get her a place to live. Now needing to get his hands on a super-sized amount of cash, he’s at a loss as to what to do. Then he has an idea…
Alya’s appeased as he later hands her a cheque – but where has the money come from? And how will she react when she inevitably discovers that Sharif ’s passionate encounter with Sonia was more than just a one-off ?