Did Coronation Street 'lack the courage' to keep Hayley alive?
Critics divided on whether soap tackled euthanasia debate bravely or stoked a ‘faux controversy'
A CONTROVERSIAL euthanasia storyline reached its conclusion on Coronation Street last night, winning high praise from television critics – but some say it fell short of tackling the assisted suicide debate head on.
Suffering from terminal cancer, the much-loved soap character Hayley Cropper – played by Julie Hesmondhalgh – took a cocktail of drugs to end her life, with her husband Roy at her side.
"This episode could easily have been just a sentimental weep-a-thon," says Ellen E Jones in The Independent, "but subtle performances, particularly from David Neilson as Roy, made for a more emotionally complex drama."
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Lucy Mangan in The Guardian describes the episode as "finely scripted" with some of the "best performances the cobbles have ever seen", while Ben Lawrence in the Daily Telegraph said it felt as if the audience was "living every tragic moment" with Hayley and Roy.
"The right to die remains a heated, emotional and complex topic which we will almost certainly never resolve," says Lawrence. "But with this storyline, handled with bravery and nuance, Coronation Street has made considerable progress in the debate."
In The Times, Alex Hardy is equally approving. "In Hayley's harrowing death scenes last night we did not see a glamorised, sensationalised story, played to make headlines roar and Twitter race. We instead saw a great love being torn apart as Roy fought his ill wife to the last."
Hesmondhalgh and Neilson played their parts "achingly" and the episode was written and directed "with jarring effect", says Hardy. "This was not a clumsy for-or-against, TV-does-issues moment, but a nuanced picture of a life ending as much painfully as peacefully. It is a plot that is likely to make viewers sob and think in buckets. Bravo."
But in the Daily Mail, Christopher Stevens believes the sensitive acting was tarnished by the producer's eagerness for ratings. He claims a "faux controversy" about the euthanasia debate was whipped up in the weeks before the broadcast, but in fact Hayley killed herself, with no help from anyone.
If Coronation Street really wanted to tackle the debate over assisted suicide, it should have let Hayley "linger a couple more weeks until she was too weak to hold the glass herself", says Stevens. "That really would have been controversial television, but the producers apparently lacked the courage for it."
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Band Aid 40: time to change the tune?
In the Spotlight Band Aid's massively popular 1984 hit raised around £8m for famine relief in Ethiopia and the charity has generated over £140m in total
By Rebekah Evans, The Week UK Published
-
Starmer vs the farmers: who will win?
Today's Big Question As farmers and rural groups descend on Westminster to protest at tax changes, parallels have been drawn with the miners' strike 40 years ago
By The Week UK Published
-
How secure are royal palaces?
The Explainer Royal family's safety is back in the spotlight after the latest security breach at Windsor
By Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK Published
-
The UK's best film and TV studio tours
The Week Recommends From King's Landing to Diagon Alley, these are some of the country's most impressive sets
By Irenie Forshaw, The Week UK Published
-
Why everyone is talking about Roxanne Pallett
Speed Read Emmerdale star quit Celebrity Big Brother and now Celebrity Island with Bear Grylls
By Hollie Clemence Last updated
-
The UK's top 20 most-watched TV programmes of all time
Speed Read From Del Boy's success to Princess Diana's bombshell Panorama interview, here are the shows we all tuned in to
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
Coronation Street in crisis as 'racist' joke sparks hundreds of complaints
Speed Read Writers accused of trivialising slavery after Eva Price compares roots to those of Kunta Kinte
By The Week Staff Published