EastEnders boss brutally asks ‘what happened to Corrie’ as he slams bleak crime storylines
EastEnders Story Editor Lawrie Jordan has branded Coronation Street's recent crime storylines, saying the soap has lost its way, while asking 'where are the laughs?'
An EastEnders boss has hit out at Coronation Street ‘s recent run of bleak storylines, asking “what happened” to the soap.
Lawrie Jordan vented on X, aka Twitter, to soap fans, saying he’s tried to keep quiet about his thoughts, but the ITV soap’s recent murder storyline has ‘wreaked havoc’ with the show’s DNA. Corrie fans were on the edge of their seats last night as the mystery of who killed Joel Deering came to a head, and the killer was revealed as Lauren Bolton.
But Lawrie has criticised writers of the show for losing the “warmth” that made Coronation Street so unique. The tweet that caught Lawrie’s eye was from an X user, which read: “What fans want: a Gail and Audrey two-hander before her departure after half a century. What fans get: murder, crime, drugs, violence and characters no-one cares about.”
He quoted the scathing summary in agreement, writing: “This isn’t easy to say and I’ve bit my tongue for long enough…what happened to the Corrie we used to know? I feel like we are watching a totally different show now.”
Lawrie added: “I appreciate tonight’s a bit of a break from form but even so the recent shift in the show to crime and police based stories is wreaking havoc with the show’s DNA. Where is the community, the warmth, the laughs, the icons, the mix of stories and generations?”
Lawrie says recent crime storylines don’t fit with the ‘show’s DNA’ (
ITV/Danielle Baguley)
Fellow soap fans echoed his sentiments, with one writing: “It’s definitely having something of an identity crisis where the people writing seem to think it’s a different show.” Another added: “Very true and it’s not even just the abundance of crime. They used to be able to do such stories with their own flavour. Now they just emulate others. The entire production has completely lost sight of what the show is.” A third Corrie viewer wrote: “Well it’s blatantly turned itself in to a crime show now. Sees itself as The Bill. But darker.”
The storyline in question reached a dramatic climax on Friday night, when an astonishing turn of events saw Joel’s killer unmasked as Lauren. The murderer was revealed on the Manchester-based soap in a series of chilling flashbacks from the night of Joel’s death. As we saw where each suspect was and what happened in Joel’s final moments, we uncovered it was Lauren Bolton who dealt the fatal blow that killed him.
Lauren, who had been groomed and later attacked by Joel earlier this year, took revenge and hit him over the head with a brick. The attack killed him, but Lauren wasn’t alone as her partner Max Turner was on hand to attempt to cover her tracks. Max threw Joel’s body over the bridge and into the river, wanting to make his death appear as a suicide.