Sinister Geoff Metcalfe (Ian Bartholomew) is less than delighted that Alya Nazir (Shelley King) has returned to work at Speed Daal. The control freak at Coronation Street is trying to isolate Yasmeen (Shelley King) from everyone, including her family, so that he can abuse her to the max.
He has been gas-lighting her behind closed doors and undermining her self-confidence by physical and psychological abuse, and she has become a shell of her former upbeat self. But when she came back to work tonight, she was genuinely pleased to see Alya return.
Geoff put on the most artificial of fake smiles but later let his bitterness appear when he told them off during their shift to talk When Alya clocked his tone and figured out he's still making Yasmeen do all the home duties, including vaccumulating under furniture, she's shocked. Seeing her as a threat, Geoff unexpectedly wrote for the restaurant a bad online review and found out it was directed towards Alya. But could this be a major mistake on his part-is Alya going to discover that he is behind it?
Speaking of the hard-hitting storyline, Shelley said recently: ' Initially viewers were furious about it because it is quite a tough experience. Still, as we moved by, both men and women went on to recognize or see situations with which they can relate.
​
I've had a lot of direct comments on Twitter from women of all ages, and also men, telling me some terrible stories… people are becoming[ more] conscious.' She added:' Soaps are a huge challenge because we don't get a lot of rehearsal time and you have to rely on your emotional memory, particularly with a storyline like this. You have to look at some very sad moments in your life to recreate. It was very hard.
