The Brookside Top 20
20 Unsolved Brookside mysteries (we did have to narrow it down a little)
Is Susannah supposed to be posessed by the spirit of Anthea Turner? As if it wasn't blindingly obvious enough before, she's now got off with a married bloke as well.
Where is Christian Wright? Even for a fictional character, he seems very casual about being locked in a bathroom half-naked with the stereo on full blast and no food for a week by a wife he never liked anyway.
How on earth are we supposed to believe that Mick Johnson could ever have won body building competitions with a beer gut and no pecs? He could perhaps be the showcase at a meeting for athletes on the consequences of over-eating.
Why are there no Asians in this show? According to Redmond, it's because there are hardly any Asians in Liverpool- I doubt there are rampant incestuous brothers and sisters living in the same street as murderers, drug-dealers and wife-beaters either, but that doesn't stop them being included.
How can two girls who aren't lesbians with bad eyesight fight over Peter Phelan? No offence to lesbians, I'm sure you have better taste than that.
Why is it that whenever a Brookside character ventures down South, there are about three options open for their relocation: more to the point, what have Reading, Birmingham, Bristol and Basingstoke done to deserve this?
When are the Brookie top-brass going to realise that no-one digs them dubbing the same tired 70s pop tracks into the background of every scene?
Where are all the ganstas that once reigned supreme? If whinging adolescent Tin-ed is now considered to be the most dead-ard character there, they have a serious problem.
Why is Jenny Swift never mentioned? Shouldn't she be out of prison by now, or are years counted differently in Brookside? We know they're on a different planet half the time, but this is ridiculous....!
Has everyone forgotton that Katie Rogers had Bulimia? Why? She's not that fat.
By what stretch of the imagination did someone decide that Sinbad was now in his early 40s? Perhaps they meant in terms of stone in weight.
Why is everyone so het up about number ten being cursed? The whole street's bloody cursed!
Why get rid of Ollie Simpson if you're only going to replace him with someone even worse? And to think I didn't even know it could get any worse!
Where is Peter supposed to have gone? Last I heard, Sam Kane who plays him is meant to have been hosting the National TV awards- that is, until he was told that TV stood for telelvision and not......
Kylie seems strangely quiet about being stuck down a drain underneath Sinbad for a week less than a year ago. Maybe, like the rest of us, she just wishes it had been her mother down there.
What is Jason Shadwick trying to tell us whenever he opens his mouth? Isn't it about time his dentist anasthetic wore off?
What will Nicki see in her next flashback? Hopefully sense.
Is Margi Shadwick's inclusion in the show going to lead to coverage of a new social issue- noise pollution?
Why does Katrina feel a compulsion to work with babies? Isn't it enough just to spend time with Jason Shadwick?
Why can't anyone see that Jimmy Corkhill's Uni degree is fake? Is it that they're thick and all their degrees are fake as well?
20 Ways to get written out of Brookside
Beat up your wife and get buried under the patio for your efforts (TREVOR JORDACHE)
Be linked to the Corkhill family (PRACTICALLY EVERYONE)
Go to France (LUCY COLLINS)
Be a self-righteous pillock and get in a fight with another self-righteous pillock who doesn't like hights at the top of a cliff. Fall off. (MARCUS SEDDON)
Realise everyone thinks you're a twit, cut your losses (and all your family photos) and move to America. (OLLIE SIMPSON)
Sleep with Mike Dixon (a last resort for those 'hard to shift' characters) (BEL SIMPSON)
Vanish, never to be mentioned again. (SANTI, NIKKI SHADWICK'S 'PRETEND' SPANISH BOYFRIEND)
Keep up the habit of a lifetime. (MAX FARNHAM)
Get a head imprint on the concrete of Brookside Parade (SUE SULLIVAN)
Meet a rich widow. (DAVID CROSBIE)
Spray acid at someone and go to prison (LEANNE POWELL)
Go and work at a women's refuge in Bristol (MANDY JORDACHE)
Move to Basingstoke (SHEILA GRANT/CORKHILL)
Elope with your sibling/lover (NAT AND GEORGIA SIMPSON)
Get shot (KATE MOSES)
Commit suicide in favour of departure to the sky above where he hopefully recieved a decent haircuit (SIMON HOWE)
Get locked in the bathroom (CHRISTIAN WRIGHT)
Kill your mother (ELAINE JOHNSON)
Get your daughter to kill you (GLADYS CHARLTON)
Go to Birmingham (BARRY GRANT)
20 vital cutting-edge social issues Brookside have covered....
nymphomaina (Max Farnham, Mike Dixon)
Cancer of the ego (Ollie Simpson)
Sense of humour bypasses (practically everyone)
Revolting Home Decor (The Corkhills, the Dixons, the Simpsons)
Shampoo and other basic personal hygeine tools depravation (Luke and Matt Musgrove)
Nauseating Accents (Niamh Musgrove, Jason Shadwick and Susannah Farnham)
Transsexuality (Peter Phelan)
Noise pollution (Jacqui Dixon, Lindsey Corkhill and Margi Shadwick).
Self-mutilation (Louise Hope)
Lack of Dress/Hair sense (Bev, Annabelle Collins, Jacqui Dixon during her "shell suit" phase years ago)
Interbreeding species (Lindsey's teeth belong in the Grand National)
Malingering (every single last one of them)
Stereotypes (the writers in the cases of the yuppie Farnhams and the Irish Musgroves)
Unbelieveable strokes of luck and career success (Jacqui Dixon, Lindsey Corkhill, Jimmy Corkhill and Katie Rogers)
non-stop relocation (Rachel Jordache, Sinbad)
businesses relying solely on income from ten neighbouring houses: (all of them)
inability to seek employment outside 500 yard raidus (most of them)
emergency services response times: Remember the whole seven seconds it took for the ambulance to supposedly get from the centre of Liverpool to this suburb when Ron Dixon had another one of his heart conk-outs?
mysterious disappearances: Danny Simpson (not seen for half a year just before he made one final appearance and left for good), Santi the Spanish Waiter who turned out to be Mark from Speke (has Nikki denied ever knowing him?)
Boy, I wish they would cover this issue more often with some more deserving people.
immortality: Ron Dixon. Three heart attacks, two near misses and still alive. Damn.
20 things to do when you leave Brookside.......
not very much (lack of space prohibits listing)
Star in "The Full Monty" Paul Barber (Greg Salter)
Win the Playgirl Sexiest English Star award Robert Beck (Peter Harrison)
give up acting Dinah May (Samantha Partridge) Shelagh O'Hara (Karen Grant)
change channels and do another soap Annie Miles (Sue Sullivan) now plays Maria in C5s cess-pool soap "Family Affairs"
be in "Heartbeat" Kazia Pelka (Anna Wolska), Tricia Penrose (Emma Reid)
move to America Jodie Hanson (Marriane Dwyer)
do well and embark on a quest to be everywhere - Anna (Beth Jordache) Friel, Lisa (Louise Hope) Faulkner, Helen (Georgia Simpson) Grace
go back ten years later for a guest appearance Bill Dean (Harry Cross)
do a medical drama with a bunch of other ex soap-stars Lisa Faulkner (Louise Hope)
be on "This Is Your Life" Sue Johnston (Sheila Grant)
be on everything Amanda Burton (Heather Huntington/Haversham/Black)
star in a McDonalds commerical Mark Burgess (Gordon Collins)
be voted European actress of the year 1994 at the Geneva Film Festival Katrin Cartlidge (Lucy Collins)
have websites plastered all over the internet about you Nicola Stephenson (Margaret Clemence), Anna Friel (Beth Jordache)
be in just about every Northern drama that exists Ricky Tomlinson (Bobby Grant)
Keep up the Liverpool theme Paul Usher (Barry Grant) He starred in Scouse Police saga Liverpool 1 on ITV last year.
Dye your hair red and star in BBC1s "Roger Roger" Helen Grace (Georgia Simpson)
change your name to differentiate you from Steven Pinder (Max Farnham), who has the same agent Steven Finch, formerly Steven Pinner (Johnathan Gordon-Davies)
20 things to do as an extra on the show
be seen roller blading down the parade
Chat up all the fit lads (no longer an option- there aren't any)
Sit in Bar Brookie, move your hands a lot and drink coffee
Sit in Bar Brookie, be a woman with a pulse and get chatted up by Mike Dixon. Say nothing, turn your head away and walk out.
Get served in the petrol station (Jackie Corkhill will say 'thanks love', you walk out, characters walk in and the real action starts)
Be an estate agent at a house auction
Stick some bottles in the recyling boxes by the petrol station
Be a fellow student at Nicki Shadwick's Uni (involves strutting down smelly corridor with dillated pupils carrying filofax)
Be a Brookside Comprehensive student (you know the deal, manky grey uniform, Kappa jacket, truckload of make-up)
Walk through the alleyway that supposedly joins Brookside Close to the Parade (yes, the one that's actually five miles away)
Be a comatose guest at a Corkhill wedding (just don't get coaxed into doing one of their dire video spin-offs)
Be a silent employee at Niamh Musgrove's firm (no reading experience necessary)
Be a driver at Jaaayyy-ooogggggh-weeeeeeay Musgrove's taxi firm ('Roger Roger' it 'aint)
walk into the chippie, get served and leave
Be a client in the solicitors office. Sit there looking worried until you realise that the main character sat next to you has got it even worse.
Stand next to the site of a major gas explosion eating a barbecued hot dog accquired from a makeshift grill 50 yards away from the same site.
Be a wrinkly customer for the Great Grannies cleaning firm.
Wear a uniform and be a silent petrol pump attendant
Sit on the parade bench and mime an intimate chat with another extra
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