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Fewer explosions and silly gangsters: six ways to save British soaps

Crashes and explosions have become all too common our soaps - ITV
Crashes and explosions have become all too common our soaps - ITV

This pesky pandemic took away our holidays and haircuts, our sport and schools, our pubs and parties – but our soap operas were the final insult. For the first time in 60 years, the UK's best-loved soaps have been off-air. Covid-19 is clearly not a fan of “continuing drama”, as nobody calls it apart from posh awards shows who can’t bring themselves to say “soap”.

However, with Britain’s big soaps now going back into production – albeit in a stripped-back, socially distanced style – it’s time to take stock. Hit by the proliferation of viewing choice and the popularity of reality TV, soap operas have suffered a ratings slump in recent years. Last year, Radio 4 arts pundit Mark Lawson hit headlines for saying they were facing a “potentially fatal crisis”.

How can this be fixed? Well, the wider broadcasting landscape is too big an issue to realistically affect. Yet as we emerge from lockdown with renewed interest in communal viewing and production still halted on many rival genres, soap operas can start by reinventing themselves. Here’s our six-point battleplan for saving our soaps.

1. Faaaaaamily innit?

That’s long been the unofficial motto of EastEnders, usually uttered by a Mitchell, a Fowler or a Beale, but it applies to all good soaps. They’re built on strong families and a sense of community – and post-pandemic, there’s rarely been a better time to portray local residents pulling together to overcome adversity.

Soaps would be wise to retreat to these core values again. Writers should be instructed to build and maintain family dynamics, preferably with strong matriarchs. Coronation Street (Elsie, Ena, Bet, Deirdre, Hilda, Rita, Hayley, Vera, Liz) and EastEnders (Pauline, Angie, Pat, Peggy, Dot, Sharon, Kat) have long specialised in formidable women, helping to attract the female-dominated early evening audience.

Classic double acts are another soap trope to which scriptwriters should aspire. Look at the recent set of commemorative stamps for Coronation Street’s 60th anniversary, depicting couples or adversaries with a line of dialogue that sums up their relationship.

From Ena Sharples versus Elsie Tanner (“If that woman’s tongue was a bit longer, she could shave with it”) to the Duckworths (“Vera, my little swamp duck”), from the Barlows (“Ken! Do something!”) to newsagent Rita Tanner with sidekick Norris Cole (“I can’t abide to see people gossiping”). How many of today’s characters can you imagine being thus immortalised?

2. Stop the gangster nonsense

EastEnders is the main culprit here but all the soaps periodically fall victim to the lurid lure of a gangster storyline. It rarely, if ever, convinces.

Witness the recent Walford plot which saw Ben Mitchell (formerly a sweet, chubby boy who liked stage musicals and ballet dancing) become a hired killer. If ever there was an encapsulation of how tired and dated such crime claptrap has become, it’s that the lame storyline ended as a menopausal tussle between huffing, puffing potato-head Phil Mitchell and a crime kingpin played by actor Paul Usher, best known as Scouse psycho Barry Grant from Brookside. Yes, they’re literally bussing in plots and performers from the Eighties.

Soaps should call a moratorium on this sub-Guy Ritchie rubbish – not least because their pre-watershed slot means they have to pull punches. Leave violent crime to 9pm dramas which have the budget, stomach and scheduling slot to do it properly.

3. Learn lessons from Emmerdale

ITV’s perennial bridesmaid is traditionally regarded as a poor relation to the twin titans of EastEnders and Coronation Street. In the past decade, though, that has changed dramatically and the Yorkshire-set saga has bucked the overall trend of soap decline. It currently pulls in more viewers than EastEnders and regularly beats Corrie to top awards. In fact, Emmerdale has won Best Serial Drama at the viewer-voted National Television Awards for the last four years.

If producers on the big two want to make improvements, they could do a lot worse than studying Emmerdale’s success. It has transformed itself impressively from the sleepy rural series called Emmerdale Farm that first arrived in 1972 – and which was memorably described by Les Dawson as “Dallas with dung”. The reboot began in 1989 with the dropping of “Farm” from the title, followed by the infamous 1993 plane crash which killed off several characters and set the tone for the more dramatic, prime-time incarnation.

Emmerdale is now well-planned, tightly plotted and gutsily performed, specialising in sudden twists and talked-about storylines. It’s been propelled by a string of cracking villains, usually femme fatales: the likes of Kim Tate (Claire King), Charity Dingle (Emma Atkins) and Steph Stokes (Lorraine Chase). It displays flashes of the camp, knowing wit of an Eighties super-soap but never apologises for its strong, confident storytelling. Corrie and EastEnders should plant spies with notepads in the Woolpack.

4. Fewer episodes and explosions

Faced with increased competition and declining ratings, alongside the creative pressure of more episodes each week – they’ve gradually increased from twice-weekly to seven times in Emmerdale’s case – the 1990s and 200s saw our soaps take drastic steps to sustain viewer interest. They steadily moved away from gritty realism and towards shock tactics.

Crashes, bombs, fires, kidnappings and serial killers plagued these implausibly unlucky communities. Characters suffered so much calamity, they became less like believable people and more like Wile E Coyote, forever getting blown to smithereens by a stick of Acme dynamite.

Coping without such outlandish events could prove a silver lining of the current crisis. With crowd scenes, large-scale set pieces or elaborate stunts unable to be safely filmed, soaps will be forced to return to domestic matters and dialogue-driven scenes. Less over-the-top melodrama, more kitchen sink drama. With our theatrical tradition, it’s what British writers and actors do best.

While we’re at it, let’s tackle the over-supply of episodes. In recent months, soaps dialled down their frequency to eke out the material already in the can. Transmitting twice a week suddenly felt like a breath of fresh air. Cliffhangers regained their potency, anticipation built. They should settle for three or four instalments per week at most. Less is more. Neither creators nor consumers need them every day. They stop being a treat and become a chore.

5. Restore a sense of humour

Coronation Street, especially, used to be one of the funniest shows on-air. Its cleverly crafted scripts were studded with wry Northern wit and deliciously quotable turns of phrase. Somewhere along the way, though, our soaps lost their fun factor.  They became so plot-driven and fixated on keeping narrative plates spinning that the lovingly written details of dialogue became overshadowed.

We used to delight in an amusing chorus of supporting characters, be they gaffe-prone old gossips like EastEnders’ Ethel Skinner and Corrie’s Blanche Hunt, or loveable young clowns like Weatherfield’s Graeme Proctor and Walford’s Arthur “Fatboy” Chubb. Such comic relief is few and far between nowadays.

Yet soaps need light and shade, some titters to offset the tragedy, to prevent them becoming unrelentingly grim. Whether it’s Corrie’s Alan Bennett-meets-Victoria Wood tone, Emmerdale’s tongue-in-cheekiness or EastEnders’ Cockney barrow-boy wit, they should be suffused with the warm humour of the everyday. They’re supposed to be entertainment, after all.

Some genuine romance wouldn’t go amiss either. When was the last time you willed a soap couple to get together or had your heart melted by two characters falling in love? Nowadays, they seem to proceed directly to the lying, shouting and recriminations. Get outta my pub!

6. Stay diverse and relevant

Soaps are often snootily stereotyped as being for housewives and old ladies but when they’re working well, their reach is far broader than that. EastEnders, for example, is the BBC’s most consistent show to reach the kind of young and BAME viewers that the national broadcaster otherwise struggles to woo.

Young audiences have grown up with the Cockney soap, while black and Asian fans see themselves reflected on-screen in prime-time, which is still all too rare. A new show that attracts that kind of diverse audience would be extremely difficult to create today (indeed, the last successful soap launch was Hollyoaks in 1995), so the Corporation should nurture rather than neglect the one it already has.

Coronation Street recently introduced its first black family - ITV
Coronation Street recently introduced its first black family - ITV

Its rivals have lagged behind but even fusty old Corrie recently moved with the times, thanks to the overdue introduction of its first black family, the Baileys. The cobbled soap’s writers have also been working with Doreen Lawrence, mother of murdered teenager Stephen, on a storyline about the forms of racial prejudice experienced by different generations.

Similarly soaps provided a valuable public service with their ability to tackle important issues in an accessible, non-preachy way. In the past, these have included rape, HIV and AIDs, mental health, domestic violence and drug abuse. Recent storylines about male suicide (Hollyoaks’ Kyle) and coercive control (Coronation Street’s Geoff and Yasmeen) have been similarly powerful – educating, informing and raising awareness as well as being compelling viewing.