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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 187066" data-attributes="member: 23">#837When David was seeking legal advice, Beryl recommended someone with a very familiar name:Surely it couldn’t be?Another familiar name came up in the same conversation when Beryl suggested Victor might steer David in the right direction. Sadly, David didn’t take it up with him there and then, as a return visit would have been nice. But it’s comforting to know that he’s still next door and probably cross about something.Ruby’s tall tales and hustling proved thoroughly enjoyable. A couple of her poignantly intimate conversations with Craig were shown to be so much blarney, but it’s easy to see why he would fall for it. I’m looking for the substance, and so find myself taking what she offers as fact. That she looks like Beryl adds further layers. It’s almost like being ripped off by someone we love.On the one hand she’s coldly blackmailing Jean Hopkins and putting Craig to work like a Fagin of the Eighties. On the other, she’s doing montages with Craig, complete with flute music.The duality is perhaps best summed up by a scene in which she did a Stella Dallas, brutally driving Craig away because she thought it was best. And the irony is that she may have used the truth to do it. But the lines between her truth and her lies became so blurred, even this was implicit.Beryl and Ruby’s one and only meeting was great fun. A really nice choice with the direction which was more kinetic than a usual S&D location scene. Rather than static head shots or even a “two in shot with a straight line in between” image, Beryl (and Leila Hayes’s body double) paced back and forth on either side of the stall table. While Ruby glared at her and continued playing with her trinkets, Beryl got tough:Alison meeting Ruby in the market, warning her to stay away from Craig was even more fun, because the actresses didn’t have to worry about the technical aspects of the Beryl/Ruby meeting and could therefore get stuck in. The resemblance throwing people off and the consequent change in energy between two players reminded me greatly of the Verna/Abby diner scene: the glamorous, wealthy blonde woman stepping into a proletarian environment for the purpose of meeting someone who looks like someone she knows, but who doesn’t recognise her, and ending up on the receiving end of a down home directness she’s not fully equipped to deal with.Rather than admire Alison’s beauty à la Verna, though, Ruby was a little more vehement in her choice of words:A full-on catfight between faux Beryl and new Patricia in the middle of a bustling market could have been great fun (though hell to film). Frankly, though, I'm happy with what we got. The sight of Leila cutting loose with threats of violence was pure joy.Ruby - all eyelashes and attitude - was great fun down to her last scene in which we saw her take a puff on a cigarette and then give some hilariously furious lip action after popping some gum or a sweet into her mouth.I’ve always found the scene in which Craig finds Ruby’s body effectively creepy. It’s presumably a result of the limitations enforced by the genre, scheduling and network at the time, but just showing Ruby’s body from the back with her furry blue hood up preyed on my young mind the first time round and I still found it so this time round.With the benefit of hindsight, the slight twist in the mystery of Ruby’s death (still to come) is made significantly less effective by the fact that the killer still hasn't appeared on screen and so isn't someone we've "met". It’s a cheat. Fortunately, we know that Craig didn’t do it right from the start, which at least added some urgency to the need to find the killer.Getting in touch with the series’ roots, as per Series Five’s more synergic approach, David referenced not believing John when he was accused of murder. There was a sense of catharsis to him freely believing Craig’s innocence despite all evidence to the contrary:Casting an eye back on another of David’s key relationships, Alison visited and roped him into filming to gain evidence about Ginny’s stolen designs. There was a nice bit of business where they were giving the camera a test run and Alison - on camera - spoke about the time she dislocated her shoulder doing a backflip. Then she faked David out by pretending she was about to do another before going into a cheesy dance routine. There are more references to Alison’s history as Patricia (both on the series and in its pre-history) than I remembered. And this is a very good thing.After some more time spent together - including one of those soapy almost-kisses as she put Dettol on his digit - Alison and David had what felt like an almost final form of closure in their teasing-but-warm parting scene:On the subject of sticking bibs in, Edna Burns - the gossipy shrew who stirs up trouble by telling Wayne about the Huntington’s - is uncannily similar in character to Mrs Mangel from Neighbours, who was at that point becoming popular. Fiona was furious that Mrs B. had spilt the beans. She doesn’t like anyone other than herself controlling who is told what.If I were making a compilation of key Wayne episodes, #834 would be one of the first I’d choose. I enjoyed Wayne trying to connect to the kid on the ferry (whose mother just happens to resemble his wife). The implication that he was speaking either to his future child or even his younger self added a sweetness. I also appreciated that he couldn’t fix that situation with money because he remembered he’d forgotten his wallet And it ended with the child’s mother ended up looking at him with a combination of pity and fear. Then his tentative bonding with Ginny, leading to a wild party (offscreen) and then Wayne kneeling on the beach at sunrise, telling her he’s dying. Kind of a MacGuffin, but if it makes Wayne two-dimensional, that’s all well and good.</blockquote>

Verification: Who played JR Ewing?