Ben Driscoll (Aaron McCusker), the affable and charming landlord of Coronation Street’s Rovers Return, hasn’t had an easy time of it recently – and the stress is about to take its toll.
The Driscolls moved into the iconic pub in October, but they’d hardly had time to pull their first pint before drama and shocks were coming thick and fast.
A lot of this was due to Ben’s younger son Will (Lucas Hodgson-Wale), who went missing when the family moved from Hull.
Viewers quickly discovered the reason for this was that Will was in an illicit ‘relationship’ with his sports coach, Megan (Beth Nixon) – who had been grooming the teenager for some time. The family have innocently facilitated this abusive relationship to continue after offering to pay Megan to continue coaching Will.
Ben is, of course, still totally unaware of what’s been going on with Will and it’s an unexploded bomb waiting to go off in his life. In the meantime the person who’s really been raising his stress levels recently is his mum, Maggie (Pauline McLynn).
Domineering matriarch Maggie is absolutely devoted to her son and his children, but she really doesn’t see eye to eye with Ben’s partner, Eva (Catherine Tyldesley). This led to the Christmas dinner from hell when Maggie found out Eva had previously terminated a pregnancy when she and Ben had split up for a while. Her attempt to publicly humiliate Eva backfired when Ben took his partner’s side rather than his mum’s and she was temporarily ousted from the pub.
Eva has had to put up with Maggie’s meddling because she put in the money to buy the pub, but in upcoming episodes Eva’s sister Leanne Battersby (Jane Danson) suggests to Maggie that she’d like to buy her share of the business. Eva acts surprised and denies all knowledge when Maggie accuses her of plotting to get rid of her.
The arguments go on for days, with Ben torn between Eva and Maggie, vainly trying to keep some sort of peace in his family.
He heads off to deal with a beer delivery, thankful to get away from the arguing for a few minutes, but he’s struck by a searing pain in his chest.
Meanwhile Leanne has turned up with an offer of £160,000 to buy Maggie’s share of the pub – an offer that Maggie instantly rejects. Mayhem ensues when the strap of Leanne’s bag gets caught around a bar stool and trips Maggie, causing her to fall.
In the middle of all the fuss Ben comes back in and Eva notices he looks pale and sweaty. He admits he’s been having heart palpitations. Desperately worried about him, Eva calls an ambulance.
As they head to the hospital, with Ben in no state to withstand any more shocks, what they don’t know is that Will and Megan are already at the hospital after Megan began to feel unwell – and since viewers have already spotted a pregnancy test in her bag, it looks like Will might be in for a massive shock.
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And a shock like that is just what Ben doesn’t need.
