Blanche Hunt - Reception

Reception

Blanche has been well received by critics and Coronation Street fans. TV critic Patrick Freyne has said of the character: "...Blanche is all curmudgeonly gallows humor and insensitivity; she gets all the best one liners...." In the same article he also praised the quality of writing for the older characters on Coronation Street: "with all the young people wandering around on TV nowadays, with their slang, texting and hippity-hop, it's great to see Coronation Street can still write fantastic older characters. There's prissy, kvetching Norris, long-suffering Rita and saintly Emily. But best of all there's Blanche Hunt, played by Maggie Jones, mother of Deirdre (formerly of the huge glasses) and tormentor of Deirdre's husband Ken..." BBC News named Blanche "Weatherfield's best-loved battle-axe", praising her "brutal honesty and withering put-downs". The Daily Mirror lauded Jones' "superb comic timing" in the role. At the 2005 and 2008 British Soap Awards, Maggie Jones won the award for "Best Comedy Performance" for her role as Blanche. She also won "Funniest Performance" at the 2009 Inside Soap awards. Jones commented at the time that she did not find Blanche funny, explaining:

“	I don't find her funny and don't think I could play her properly if I did. Blanche genuinely believes what she's saying is right, and doesn't say things for comedic effect. If I started trying to play the lines for laughs, they wouldn't come out right and the performance would suffer. Everyone knows someone like Blanche - or if they don't, they wish they did. We'd all like to be as outspoken as her and have the nerve to say the things she does.	”
—Maggie Jones, Daily Mirror

"Skirt no bigger than a belt, too much eyeliner, and roots as dark as her soul."

Blanche on Weatherfield resident Liz McDonald, an example of her "blunt one-liners".

Pop star George Michael has stated that Blanche is his favourite soap character, commenting: "When you're as old as her you can get away with saying anything." Following Jones' death, The Daily Telegraph wrote in her obituary: "As a deft exponent of Blanche’s withering one-liners and put-downs, Maggie Jones made the part her own, stealing scene after scene as the acid-tongued widowed mother of Deirdre Maggie Jones's portrayal of Blanche as a meddlesome busybody was beautifully judged and finely understated." They deemed Blanche "a long-term favourite of Coronation Street fans", appraising: "With her trademark scowl and folded arms, Blanche epitomised the tyrannical mother-in-law as portrayed on the seaside postcard." Tim Teeman of The Times appraised: "To many Coronation Street fans Blanche was a finer battleaxe than the legendary Ena Sharples (Violet Carson). To many (including myself), Blanche was our favourite character. She gleefully defied the maxim that if you hadn’t anything nice to say about somebody, you shouldn’t bother saying it. Instead, she broadcast her malevolence from the rooftops and to her victims' astonished, deeply offended faces." Teeman called Jones a "brilliant actress" and noted: "Blanche could be kind, but not often. She and Norris were the great gossip-mongering tag team of the Street, revelling in others' misfortune. Blanche often didn’t have to say anything at all. She’d just purse her lips. That was withering condemnation enough." Low Culture columnist Ruth Deller praised the work of the late Maggie Jones by stating: "even from beyond the grave, she delivered one of Corrie’s best storylines, with the reading of her will providing some classic Blanche moments. She’ll be sorely missed."