TV Review: Coronation Street - Surrogacy in Weatherfield

The British TV soap opera, Coronation Street, has become an established national institution since the first episode was screened in December 1960. It is on several nights each week and is set in 'Weatherfield', a fictional working class neighbourhood in Manchester.

One of the programme's many plots this year has focused on a surrogacy arrangement made between intending parents Isabelle (Izzy) and Gary and their friend, Tina. This being 'soapland', there are various sub-plots. As a result, the overall storyline does stretch credibility to some extent, although as some 'real world' surrogacy cases illustrate, fiction is not necessarily stranger than fact (1,2).