Corrie’s Leanne Battersby is a soap icon – is there anything left for her to do? Our writers battle over Cobbles legend

LEANNE Battersby has earned her status as a Coronation Street legend thanks to her almost 30 years on the cobbles.

From marriages to divorce to devastating child loss, the Weatherfield bombshell has experienced it all.

Portrayed by actress Jane Danson, Leanne first arrived in 1997 as a member of the “family from hell” – the Battersby clan.

During her time on the Street, she has been a prostitute, a restaurant manager, a lap dancer and a drug dealer and she’s had heaps of drama along the way.

But as Coronation Street faces a cash crisis and a mass cast exodus, has Leanne run her course on the show?

With characters being given the boot by the minute, The Sun’s TV experts Alex Doyle and Jake Penkethman battle it out about what the future looks like for Leanne and if her time in Weatherfield should very much be over.

TIME IS UP

By Alex Doyle

Over her three-decade stint in the cobbles, soap fans have watched Leanne be reinvented numerous times by ITV bosses that have come and gone – including some of its viewers, without touching a nerve. It can be called character progression but where do you draw the line and bravely say this has run its course?

Leanne has consistently delivered over the years and kept fans gripped with a list as long as your arm of wide-ranging stories – from abortion, miscarriage, drug abuse and even a brief stint as a prostitute.

She is a multi-faceted character, with recent storylines including the death of her child, fraud and being brain-washed by a cult, exposing Leanne’s vulnerable side.

The death of her son Oliver to mitochondrial disease is arguably one of her – if not the most – important storyline Jane has worked on for Coronation Street. 

Her grief watching her son deteriorate rapidly from a healthy young boy to his horrific death struck an emotion with viewers, as every parents’ worst nightmare played out on screen. 

Jane Danson is a phenomenal actress and her ability to bring such rawness and grit to these storylines is something that her peers could take lessons from, without naming names.

Her dedication to the role, clearly evident, is commendable.

But the character in the last several years has gone terribly stale. And that’s not on Jane, that’s on writers, again, not being brave enough to call it a day and write the character out.

Leanne is easily forgotten about when she’s not stuck behind the diary in the Viaduct Bistro or in a screaming match with her on-screen sister Toyah and estranged husband Nick on the Manchester cobbles.

Nick and Leanne go back decades, having first started dating in 1997 but Nick and Toyah have now confessed their love for each other, much to Leanne’s devastation.

With her son Oliver and step-son Simon Barlow no longer in the picture, there is nothing holding her to the famous street now.

Recent scenes between Leanne and Toyah sharing a prison cell and having a heart-to-heart after Leanne tried to frame her sister for fraud came across as boring and forced. This isn’t an attack on the acting, it’s the script.

A raft of departures from Coronation Street are upcoming, with stars such as Charlotte Jordan, Colson Smith, Paddy Bever and Shelley King either upping sticks or being given their marching orders.

It’s needed as the soap badly needs an overhaul.

You just have to look on social media to see die-hard and loyal fans begging soap bosses for lighter and more upbeat storylines. They’re desperate for the show to return to its golden age. Upsetting and dark storylines are sometimes needed to mirror society, but it’s been overkill for the past decade.

Leanne needs a break and doesn’t have to be killed off. Just like her dad didn’t deserve to be either, off-screen, with actor Bruce Jones learning his fate brutally by email.

Executive producer Kate Brooks has an opportunity now to rest the character and writers have a number of avenues for Leanne’s departure at their disposal.

While the obvious choice is to send Leanne down for fraud, bosses could let the character become engrossed once again in a cult, running away from Weatherfiled, not to be heard from for a long time. It keeps the door wide open and leaves a sense of mystery for Leanne, paving the way for an eventual return – but in a good number of years.

30 years is a long time to play one role, especially in a soap opera. Nina Wadia portrayed Zainab Masood in EastEnders but had to leave to stand a chance at getting work away from the no-nonsense character.

She said: “I thought maybe I’d go back into comedy [after leaving EastEnders] but Zainab ruined my career for a year because no casting director would touch me.

“My agent would put me forward and they’d go, ‘No, she’s Zainab’, and I was like, ‘I’m not actually Zainab. I can do other things’.”

STREET LEGEND

By Jake Penkethman

Whilst for some they may feel playing a long-running soap icon “ruins” their career – the same simple cannot be said for the brilliant Jane.

Just today she said live on This Morning that she is “so grateful for” her job and confessed she’d want to stick around for 30 more years – and so she should!

Leanne has proved how much of a real multi-faceted character she is – and even more so in recent weeks.

Jane played a blinder when she portrayed Leanne having discovered that Nick and Toyah were still sleeping together.

The way she went from meek and mild back to her good old soap bitch ways managed to inject some fire into the dreary Cobbles.

Fans of the show have been forced to pick a side and the teenage fiestiness of Leanne has been clear to see as she has continued to make life a living hell for her sister and her ex.

Her revenge plot has been executed perfectly.

Rather than violent rampages and verbal rage, Leanne has pulled off all her stunts with a smile on her face and a spring in her step – and has watched everything unfold from the sidelines.

Bosses decision to team her up with Tracy Barlow has provided a double act we never knew we needed.

Whilst their bad at heart, watching them is oh so good.

Though murderer Tracy is arguably the most evil of the two, watching her coach Leanne into how to truly annoy Toyah has been a delight to see.

Just this week, watching Tracy and Leanne make a laughing stock of Toyah in the Bistro made for hilarious viewing and brought Corrie firmly back to its roots.

During a time dominated by police interviews, tearaway teens and the grating Lauren Bolton, Leanne’s cunning ways have injected some much needed real-life humour and Northern comedy back into the ITV soap.

There is no way we can lose Leanne from the programme.

She is one of the few Weatherfield residents left who are pure Coronation Street.

She embodies the show and all of its classic personality traits.

Her character hasn’t been written and created to mimic a big-budget Netflix drama character or be a cheap, knock-off Catherine Cawood from Happy Valley.

With exits like Gail Platt and the impending departures of Eileen Grimshaw and Debbie Webster, the soap simply cannot afford to lose anymore characters who have Weatherfield in their DNA.

She represents the core of what the soap is about – if we lose her, we are on a very slippery slope to forever losing the soap.

Long Live Leanne!