Well that's certainly not the case with me - can't speak for others.

If Phil hadn't of sent in two thugs to scare her and nearly killing her in the process she wouldn't of been robbing him in the first place. As other forum members have said she has only ever cheated on Grant and that was twenty year's ago. People really need to know all the history of a character before they start making statements as if they were facts.

Sharon gets plenty of hate, it's not just Shirley, even if other like to make out it is & fans of Sharon can at least see her faults as a character, not many can with Shirley.

Sharon was dreadful last year, and she she being a mug now, her character's attitude turn around it a matter of weeks has been pathetic, I actually look forward to this s/l over and she might finally be free of Phil and Shirley for a while.

No more vs vs malarkey.

Exactly, Shirley and Phil had a good friendship this year, but all of a sudden in order to accommodate drama for the wedding, they have suddenly made Shirley obsessed with him again. It was Phil who kept going to Shirley through the year and even when Sharon was in hospital, Phil was with Shirley, it was Shirley who turned Phil down and walked away from the relationship in the first place. It has only been recently that they have made her like this over Phil again, just to fit the story arc.


Agree with all of this. I think the bashers on here will just find any excuse to have a pop and are determined to find the bad in everything.


I hope not. No character is universally liked and Shirley does get a lot of love on other platforms, the haters on here are just very, very vocal, all of the time. Sharon is pretty unpopular outside of here funnily enough, this s/l will probably restore her though.

Finally a few people here on my wavelength! It feels like there is only a handful of people on here who don't see it so black and white. Or conveniently forget scenes.

Both Shirley and Sharon have their shortcomings. As do many characters. Some cant admit to that imo.

Don't care if people disagree with this but Shirley is partly iconic. The reason why I said partly is because she's not an icon yet. She can be iconic in future depending how long Linda Henry wants to stay.

I would like Sharon and Shirley to continue having scenes after the Phil/Sharon/Shirley business is over. They could be the next Pat and Peggy.

So when she was snogging Phil behind Jack's back was that not cheating then?

Also she may not have been cheating on anyone but what she did to Zoe was pretty sh*tty.

I think you may have your time line mixed up a bit as this was after Peggy's exit.

Nobody's saying Sharon is a saint but to make out she is a serial cheater is ridiculous. If anyone's a serial cheater its Phil.

It is still not every man she has been with though which was the original statement made. it is 2 in nearly 30 years of dating history.

I don't think anybody is denying that it wasn't nice of her to be seeing Dennis when he was with Zoe but she still wasn't the actual one that was in a relationship and cheating on them. The role of the Mistress is very different to the role of the Cheater - cruddy yes but they are not betraying the 'wife' in the same way as they have never made any commitment to them - the 'husband' has. Phil sleeping with Sharon when she was married to Grant was just as much a betrayal of Grant by him as by Sharon because they were brothers so a level of trust existed there but if he hadn't been related to or friends with her husband it would not have been as much so.

Can I just say that no one is soaps is perfect. If they were they would be the most boring bunch of uninteresting no-marks to watch So really, all this Shirley did this, Sharon did that is daft as we could be slinging mud from now til doomsday, lol!





Can't argue with that.


No doubt it's been done to fit a story arc but if Phil and Shirley don't end up together it proves to me that Shirley just can't stay friends with him. She's still in love with him no matter what he has done or does so really needs to keep her distance in the future. So if he 'picks' (dear God, that gets to pick) Sharon but Shirley still ends up in his bed afterwards/later on she'll have no sympathy from this quarter, she's bringing her misery on herself and happy to play second best.


I'm a 'basher' but IMO a fair basher. If Shirley's done nasty things I'm not going to make excuses or argue back what someone else has done to make her look better. Shirley is supposed to have done some pretty despicable things in the past and we've seen her do some despicable things on screen but that does not stop her being a cracking character. I've been saying for donkey's now that I don't have to like a character personally to 'like' them. I loved Janine but I wouldn't want to know her in real life, same with Shirley, she's a blinding character but I'd probably keep my distance in the real world - her scowling would scare me off

Sharon's getting on my wick at the moment too and I'm quite vocal about it, thing is IMO they've got Sharon acting quite out of character (this time round) whereas with Shirley I'd quite believe she'd go back to Phil. I knew when she didn't grass him up for covering for Ben that she was still in love with him. Oh she made a good show of following him around and snarling but she didn't dob him in did she? Phil is Shirley's achilles heel but he's not Sharon's which is why I just can't understand Sharon calling off her revenge. This is Den Watt's daughter, she wouldn't put up with that.


Spot on. I always find it bewildering when Sharon is whipped for sleeping with her brother-in-law but Phil is almost let off for sleeping with his brother's wife! Both are bad and a massive betrayal! I'm sitting here trying to pick which one's worse, perhaps the blood relation cheating with his brother's wife tips it ever so slightly? You can have many wives/husbands but your brother/sister is always going to be your sibling. Then again your spouse makes a commitment to you ..... oh I don't know Either way they were BOTH louses! But my God, it was fantastic to watch

BIB That's sort of true, and it's why Shirley can't really be blamed for his cheating on Sharon. He has been giving Shirley the come on for months now and recently has even told her that Sharon will never be Mrs Mitchell. I think she want's to believe him but he's sending out mixed messages and TBH she doesn't trust him. Unfortunately she loves him and can't help hoping that he's chosen her. I think Shirley is going to be hurt far more than Sharon because Sharon is marrying him for the wrong reasons.

^ Sharon loves Phil though. But cannot wait for Sharon and Phil to split up soon..

I just don't buy that. Last year she said she loved Jack.

Absolutely. For some reason which I can't quite comprehend Shirley is head over heels for the giant tomato whereas Sharon isn't. Oh Sharon likes him, loves him even. She's comfortable with him and they have a shared history but I wouldn't say she's in love with him whereas Shirley would walk on hot coals for him.

TBH though I think Shirley's attitude in the bar on the hen night got some backs up (I'll be honest, I didn't like it). She was delighting in another woman's potential downfall, a woman who she has treated shoddily by sleeping with her partner. IMO I don't think the other man or woman can be held totally blameless if they know that person is with someone else. Instead of keeping her head down and quietly looking forward to her 'rival's' downfall she was almost gleeful so I'm afraid if Phil does 'choose' Sharon and drops Shirley some will delight in HER downfall.

Undoubtedly she was crowing a bit but it was Sharon's own foolishness in stealing from Phil (again) that has put her in this position. Besides I really don't think losing Phil would be any loss for either of them, more of a lucky escape.

Sharon is not beyond crowing herself and I'm sure that her and Linda will have a good chuckle when Shirley is inevitably humiliated and heartbroken.

Of course, love makes fools of us all - we all have a tendency to believe what we want to believe and Shirley wants to believe that Phil feels as much for her as she does for him and that they will be together again. Deep down that is why she was unable to report his involvement in the cover up to the Police or the Community. Even though she did hate him for what he had done, she still needed to have some contact with him and couldn't if he was in Prison.

Somehow I do find an affair slightly more forgivable if the third party truly does believe that is is a short term situation, that their lover will leave their spouse for them and bring it out into the open and that was the case with Sharon/Zoe/Dennis and is now with Shirley as Phil has told her he won't be marrying Sharon. And of course, in both Sharon and shirley's minds, their lover shouldn't be the other woman in the first place as they 'had' them first and probably believe that if they hadn't broken up with them (it was Shirley that walked out on Phil in 2012) these new relationships wouldn't have happened in the first place.

Plus in Shirley's case, given that she did always feel threatened by ShaRon's memory even before meeting her, it is the ultimate vindication to 'win' over her.

I don't think Sharon truly loves either of them - I don't think she is over Dennis and all these relationships since have a smell of desperation about them.

But of the 3 we've seen (John, Jack and Pohil) I think she comes the closest to loving Pohil simply because of their long history. I don't think he'd stand a chance if Grant turned up again and wanted her again - especially the rather more mellow and calm Grant of the last stint. No, she wasn't interested then but Dennis was still around.

Personally I think that Grant and Dennis are the 2 loves of her life but her feelings for Phil are strong and in some ways comfortable.

I find the Shirley / Sharon dynamic interesting as Sharon in many ways was the ghost in Shirley's relationship with Phil. Way before Sharon came back Shirley knew of her existence and history with Phil and then the night Sharon appeared on Phil's doorstep (the night Phil proposed to Shirley I think) Phil ran out and went to Sharon's aid. A few months later, Phil and Shirley are no more and he's chasing Sharon again.

It doesn't excuse Shirley's behaviour but I understand her hostility.

I keep asking this, but is it likely Shirley will get back together with phil after this wedding? I still don't know where they're going with Phurl.

I just said exactly the same thing about the nature of Sharon's feelings for Phil before seeing your post.

Re who was the biggest horror re the affair during her marriage to Grant, my instinct would be to say Phil as the sibling bond goes much further back and is, as you say, for life whereas spouses do sometimes come and go. He also behaved appallingly in the aftermath, putting all the blame on her (she had chased him) rather than sharing responsibility. And whilst it isn't an excuse for infidelity, if a marriage isn't working you should end it rather than cheating, Grant was a pretty dreadful husband and didn't treat her well at all.

I agree that if you know a man (or woman) is married you can not be blameless for having an affair, whether you know the person or not. But it is not as bad as doing it when the wife is a friend or relative or the person that has taken the wedding vows.

Shirley's enjoyment of this situation, throwing barbs at Sharon, answering questions about what Phil is like in bed at her rival's hen night is not pleasant to watch no and won't be winning her fans with a lot of the audience - whether they are dedicated Sharon fans or not. It just isn't nice to watch somebody be that nasty.

BIB: AMEN!!!! That bothers me 100x more than any number of Shirley snarls or whether she ends up with the evil tomato. I would have preferred Sharon's story to be about Sharon.