Coronation Street Janice Battersby legend slams horrific dead baby story for Toyah
Former Coronation Street star Vicky Entwistle has hit out at an upcoming storyline that will see Toyah Habeeb (Georgia Taylor) reveal she buried a stillborn child at a local park 20 years ago.
The actress, 55, first appeared as gobby Janice Battersby in 1997 and was later joined by her layout husband Les (Bruce Jones) and their daughters Leanne (Jane Danson) and Toyah.
She departed the show in 2011 and has recently starred in Channel 4 soap Ackley Bridge and BBC drama Casualty.
One of her biggest storylines is set to be revisited in coming weeks as Toyah confides in her family that following a sexual assault in 2001, she miscarried a baby and hastily buried it at the Red Rec.
Many fans have already expressed extreme distaste at the update in the shocking plot line, which was considered one of the ITV soap’s most controversial at the time.
At Easter 2001, Toyah enjoyed a night out with mechanic Sam Kingston (Scott Wright), but on her way home was raped and brutally left for dead in the ginnel behind Coronation Street.
After being discovered by Jason Grimshaw (Ryan Thomas), she revealed the ordeal to her mum and a number of potential suspects were lined up as her attacker.
The callous move was highly criticised by the national press, who despite praising Georgia Taylor’s performance, called the decision to turn the traumatic narrative into a ‘who-dunnit?’ mystery a dangerous move.
The new story looks set to retroactively change the narrative of the original plot line, as in original broadcasts she was seen to be advised to take the morning after pill.
In the early hours of this morning (4th April), Vicky chipped in her opinion on the upcoming episodes, taking to X/Twitter to pose a question to co-star Bruce Jones.
‘Well we tried to make our moments as real as they could possibly be, didn’t we Bruce?!’ she began.
‘I guess we failed. Who knew [that] digging up dead babies would become the highlight of ITV’s tea time slot!!!’
This isn’t the first time that Vicky has weighed in on episodes, having criticised writers involved in the heartbreaking death of Oliver Battersby, Leanne’s son, in 2020.
In a since deleted tweet, she wrote: ‘Imagine if she (Danson) had better writers behind her!!! That really would have been something!!!’
Her on-screen daughter swiped back, adding: ‘Thats so disrespectful. They were some of the best scripts I have ever had.’
The following day she issued a public apology, describing her words as ‘childish and hurtful.’
John Whiston, head of continuing drama and head of ITV in the North recently hit back at the outpouring of criticism from fans following a wave of dark episodes: ‘Coronation Street is, and always has been, a mixture of characters you love, earthy humour and stories that matter such as the current Liam bullying storyline or the Lauren grooming storyline’ he told The Guardian.
‘The show is proud to explore important contemporary issues such as these and our audience research shows that viewers really appreciate these stories and believe we deal with them in an engaging but responsible way.
‘Which is why Coronation Street continues to be the most-watched soap on British TV.’