Playing to win

A couple of weeks ago EastEnders celebrated its silver anniversary with a special live episode, accompanied by more behind-the-scenes footage than the Lord of the Rings box-set. But there's another soap landmark on the horizon, and it makes 25 years of Walford seem as inconsequential as Albion Market.

This year Coronation Street turns 50 years old - making it one of the longest running TV shows in history. Understandably keen to leverage the show's remarkable heritage, producers are arranging a variety of special events, sponsorship deals and promotions to ensure that nobody forgets Weatherfield's birthday.

Although it's not too difficult to imagine how brands like Warburtons and Typhoo tea will be able to get involved in the celebrations, another tie-in has been announced that seems a little harder to fathom. According to reports, a Coronation Street game is currently being developed for the Nintendo Wii.

Computer games based on popular entertainment properties have a patchy history - the E.T. adaptation was famously rushed to market in 1982 and almost bankrupted Atari. In the end, the unsold games ended their days as landfill in Mew Mexico.

But if a game based on the world's favourite movie (at the time) couldn't translate into a half-decent gaming experience, things don't look too great for a TV show that would think nothing of basing a cliff-hanger around an under-cooked hotpot.

With just nine months to go until the game is released, developers must be scratching their heads about how to turn one of our best-loved programmes into a compelling adventure. So here's a few suggestions to get them started, taking inspiration from some familiar titles:

Fans of beat-em ups would love a special edition of Mortal Kombat, featuring those scrap-happy chappies Mike Baldwin and Ken Barlow. Round one sees the bare-chested hunks go mano-a-mano in the Rovers Return, before spilling out into the street.

As the fights become more intense (hair pulling and tie-stretching a speciality) we'd also be treated to spectacularly rendered backdrops of Ken's school staff-room, Mike's underwear factory, and Alma Sedgewick's front steps. The triumphant player wins the fair hand and crinkly neck of Deirdre Langton-Barlow-Rashid-Barlow.

Free-roaming adventurous types might prefer Grand Theft Auto: Weatherfield Stories. Join juvenile delinquent David Platt as he takes his girlfriend for a ride in a stolen sports car, stopping along the way to break into Roy's Rolls and steal the condiment bottles.

If your taste in driving games leans towards speed rather than crime, then it's Gran Turismo: Rosamund Street. Players buckle-up as Steve McDonald in a nitro-fueled taxi from Street Cars, with bonus points gathered every time you deliver a baby in the back-seat or ditch your ride in the Manchester Ship Canal.

What's that terrible shuffling, groaning sound? It can only be the living dead, creeping inexorably up the street to feed on our brains and infect us with a fate worse than death. You'll need to pack some serious heat if you're going to take on the triptych of terror - Emily Bishop, Betty Turpin and a recently reanimated Vera Duckworth - in Residential Home Evil.

But the game I'm most excited about is an adaptation of one of Coronation Street's seminal moments, when Rita-beater Alan Bradley gave chase across a busy Blackpool promenade and met his maker under the wheels of the world's slowest tram. This moment of high drama is just crying out to be turned into a 21st century version of Frogger.

Ultimately though, I imagine that Granada will insist on an original game that makes full use of the Wii's innovative motion-capture technology. So prepare for a race against time as you totter up the famous cobblestones in Bet Lynch's leopardskin high-heels whilst balancing a tray of Newton & Ridley's finest (Wii Fit balance board not included).

Better start forming an orderly queue outside GAME now...

Predicting the future

They say imitation in the sincerest form of flattery. Still, I can't imagine that the producers of US sci-fi mystery show FlashForward will be feeling too proud of the fact that British teen soap Hollyoaks is planning a 'flash forward' of its own. Hollyoaks is, after all, a show that makes Emmerdale look like The Wire.

In fact, the only glimmer of hope from all this, is that the tribute may restimulate the audience's rapidly fading interest in the one-time smash hit series. When FlashForward first aired, its hot cast of familiar faces and write-it-on-a-post-it high concept plotline saw audiences flocking to the show. With fan favourite Lost just one series away from ending, viewers were crying out for a new mysterious sci-fi epic to help them through the Sawyer and Sayid-free years ahead.

But initial excitement soon faded, as the intriguing premise was overpowered by awful dialogue, dodgy special effects, and the erratic pace of a cardiology monitor. By the time we were introduced to the least convincing lesbian since Lindsay Lohan, audiences had already lost the will to tune in.

But that hasn't stopped the producers of Hollyoaks declaring their intention to steal FlashForward's central premise, and apply it to the Chester massive. By taking a look at its characters' lives six months down the road, Hollyoaks claims it will be making "UK soap history when when it becomes the first serial drama to break the time continuum."

Perhaps the show's makers have forgotten how often the genre has seen characters pop up to their bedroom or visit relatives in Canada, only to return a decade older, with a completely different face. Soap opera characters tamper with the space time continuum more often than Doc Brown.

The justification for this flight of fictional fantasy is the fact that, according to series producer Lucy Allan, "Hollyoaks is the only soap that can tamper with time and give our audience the opportunity to look at events that haven't yet taken place." She has a point, since most of Hollyoaks primary audience consists of hungover twentysomethings who only watch it because it enables them to focus long enough for the room to stop spinning. That and the fact that its cast are marginally more appealing to look at than what's lying in the U-bend. They wouldn't notice if the show's characters were suddenly replaced with crude cartoons scribbled onto an ironing board.

Ultimately, if they want to give viewers an insight into what's happening six months down the road, I can save them the time and effort. One character will be on Dancing On Ice, one will be on Celebrity Big Brother, one will be preparing to go into the jungle, one will be training for Strictly Come Dancing, and the rest will be trying to drunkenly hail a cab outside Mahiki.

Sublime and ridiculous

There's a technique some gentlemen employ to prolong their pleasure in situations of intimacy. If they feel that the finish line is in sight a little too soon, they simply think of something unappealing in order to cool their ardor.

For an illustration of how effective this technique can be, take a look at two of the newest additions to the cast of 'Calendar Girls' in London's West End. Presumably, anyone who gets too excited at the prospect of sex symbol Kelly Brook in a state of undress, can always cop an eyeful of sex hieroglyphic Julie Goodyear instead.

Kelly has been posing in promotional shots for the musical, alongside Corrie's one-time barmaid-cum-battleaxe. Unsurprisingly, the press have been happy to use the pictures, despite the fact that Kelly has whipped her baps out more often than Greggs bakery. As for Julie Goodyear, appearing in the raw could be a real challenge, given that audiences are more used to seeing her dressed in enough fake animal print to reupholster Peter Stringfellow's entire living room.

Despite a career littered with failed attempts as a TV presenter and talent show judge, Kelly knows where her true strengths lie. And with a couple of strategically placed Belgian buns, she could well have the entire audience upstanding.