Something’s just occurred to me during the current Arthur ‘n’ Martha storyline in Coronation Street. Why didn’t the kiss outside the nightclub really happen?

What we got was Sean facing the camera, and Sunny facing him. We saw the back of Sunny’s head, and the stunted movement of the two bonces made it obvious there was no real lip-locking whatsoever going on.

Okay, so the story dictated that Steve wouldn’t know it was Sunny until he recognised the shirt on his back later as he got into his taxi. But in the interests of drama, it would have made sense for the viewer to get a close-up, especially as Sean and Sunny had acted their own dramatic moment outside the nightclub just before the camera panned back and the faked tonsil hockey got underway. The actors surely can’t have dictated what did and didn’t happen.

Then I remembered the explosive reaction – of the not-good variety – the last time (and, indeed, the first time) Corrie decided to embrace man love. So we got Nick Tilsley clumsily molested by confused Todd Grimshaw – the former doing outrage a little too forcefully; the latter playing confused extremely well. And it was barely a brush of the lips before Nick jumped up and began his tirade at Todd. But the Daily Mail went berserk; the TV critics panned it for not going far enough or, in some cases, just made some very weak jokes; and retired Corrie stalwarts like Jean Alexander gave interviews about how it was all wrong and misguided and there was too much emphasis on youth issues.

After that, Todd met that nurse friend of Martin’s in Manchester’s gay village but never kissed him, before disappearing off down south. Sean has since filled the gay quota for one street but never actually seems to have any fun, and has struggled to get beyond mild flirtation when it comes to relationships. He has to be seen at the moment trying to rekindle former passions with Sunny, despite him being the beau of barmaid Michelle, his close friend. The storyline might end happily (I doubt it though) and as it includes Steve, will be often played for laughs, but ultimately the lack of kiss and the lack of direction for the likeable Sean – the sort of gay bloke straight guys like Jamie can feel some empathy with – means that Corrie has listened to the critics and lost its nerve.