(Nice day for a) white wedding

Soap opera weddings. They fall into two categories - blissful affairs calculated to tug on the heartstrings, or calamitous car-crashes which almost invariably feature one partner being left jilted at the altar. Yawn.

Which is why tonight's second episode of 'Coronation Street' made for such joyous viewing, Cilla and Les's nuptials proving to be anything but predictable. The writers pulled out all the stops in aiming for high farce, and it worked a treat - from Cilla breaking the Barlows' window with Joshua's tricycle to get at a bouquet she couldn't afford to pay for and the marriage party fleeing the "borrowed" church in the nick of time as the vicar arrived back unexpectedly, to Les smashing up all the couple's wedding gifts thinking he was trashing Status Quo's dressing room. The only predictable thing about it was that the whole shebang concluded with the entire room gyrating away to 'Rockin' All Over The World', Rick Parfitt and Francis Rossi like Les himself wearing neck braces.

Some of the stuff that has passed itself off as comedy in recent years wouldn't be fit to lick the boots of an episode like that. And the Quo's stoned roadie should be given a permanent role in the soap this instant.