Tough choices to be made to the stop the soap bubble bursting?

In a recent article in the Guardian (Soap operas: has the bubble burst? http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2013/oct/01/soap-operas-has-the-bubble-burst) Stuart Jeffries writes that the current UK soap operas are ‘no longer fit for purpose’ and that the ‘whole genre seems spent’. While it is clearly true that all is not well in the world of soap, I don’t agree that the end of soap is nigh.

Why? Because people will always crave stories. Telling stories and listening to stories is a fundamental human activity which makes us who we are. And soap stories do a particular thing that other TV dramas don’t: they tell stories about characters we recognise in places we recognise – people like us – who face tough choices and often do the wrong thing. By doing this, they let us experience what it would be like to do what we hope we wouldn’t do in our own lives.

This isn’t escapism. Escapism is watching Mad Men, The Wire or even Made in Chelsea. After all, not many of us are Madison Avenue advertising executives, Baltimore drug dealers or Chelsea airheads. Watching those lives unfold on screen takes us out of ourselves, lets us experience lives we will never live (though for the record, I’d rather be a Baltimore drug dealer than be made in Chelsea).

So, soaps are serving a different audience than other dramas. And for all the fragmenting of TV audiences, they’re still surprisingly popular. Coronation Street regularly gets around 8 million people tuning in (it was a little misleading for the Guardian article to state that Corrie’s numbers had dropped from 14 million in 2010 to half that now as that figure was for the live 50th anniversary episode and so wasn’t indicative of the usual ratings). Granted, EastEnders isn’t doing as well as it was a few years ago but hopefully the new executive producer, Dominic Treadwell Collins (who was the show’s Story Producer between 2007 and 2010) will be able to turn its fortunes around.

But turning around any soap production is going to mean making changes. There are some tough choices to be made.

In the article, Christine Geraghty of Glasgow University says that it is the ‘relentless intensity of plotting that makes soaps often seem daft’ and I would agree with her. It’s always been true that some soap stories have to be ‘big’ to (hopefully) grab a large audience but I think the problem now lies with the sheer amount of stories needed by the genre. Put simply; the more episodes a week you produce, the more stories you need, the less time you have to work on them.

Perhaps the solution might be to think the unthinkable and have fewer episodes each week. Doesn’t anyone else yearn for having just two half-hour weekly episodes of their favourite soap to watch? And if there were fewer episodes, it would mean the producers and the story teams would have more time to spend on developing the stories and the characters and where they were heading. Is overseeing four or five episodes a week, all year round, too much for any one executive producer to handle, no matter how skilled and experienced they are? Perhaps this is why we’ve seen so many high-profile departures in recent years. Would downsizing the productions lead to a position where more authorship could be taken by the person in overall control of a show – just like it is in the best TV dramas?

And while we’re thinking radically, what about considering the schedules? Do the major soaps necessarily need to be prime-time shows? If that’s just too radical, try this: do all episodes of the major soaps need to be prime-time?

The growth of digital technology means the way we watch television is changing; both how we watch it (e.g. via the internet) and when we watch it (e.g. using an on-demand service like the BBC iPlayer). In the Guardian piece, Phil Redmond talks about how families are less likely to sit together and watch the same show, but that ‘you might get the parents watching the flat screen, the kids on their tablets, and the teenagers watching on their phones.’ In that case, do we need a nightly fix of soap between 7pm and 9pm? What if some or all the episodes were transmitted in a daytime slot? Or exclusively online?

BBC One’s Doctors wasn’t mentioned in Stuart Jeffries’ article (I’d count it as a medical soap) but it’s a show that’s been doing well since it began in 2000. I watch regularly in the 1.45pm slot, but if I miss it then, I’ll watch it on the iPlayer later in the day or maybe later in the week. This is how we watch TV now.

And if a soap could be flexible in the schedule, could it be flexible in its format? Do all episodes have to fill the half-hour slot? Don’t get me wrong, I think 30-minutes is a great space to tell around three typical soap stories in, but what if I wanted to tell one story over 20-minutes? Or 15-minutes? If the big soaps weren’t anchored so rigidly in prime-time, they could be free to play with the storytelling and the format of individual episodes.

Obviously EastEnders did something like this with E20, but that was clearly targeted at a young audience. More and more it is the family (and friends) audience who will be watching in this new alone-but-together way; that is, we might be watching alone but we share the experience together via social media, either while we’re watching (e.g. via Twitter) or later (e.g. via Facebook).

And that connectedness we have now through social media is perhaps the major reason why I believe the big soaps won’t burst and disappear. If the fans of Brookside had had Facebook and Twitter at their disposal when the show was about to be axed in 2003, you can bet that the inevitable online campaign would have kept it on air. Imagine what a kind of campaign would ensue if there were whispers of axing EastEnders, Coronation Street or Emmerdale?

So the soaps won’t die, the major ones at least, but they will have to change. And if that’s going to happen, it’s up to the producers and the channel bosses to face the tough choices and make some difficult decisions – just like the characters in the soaps they make.

Top of the Lake – TV Noir, New Zealand-style

The first part of the new New Zealand-based crime drama Top of the Lake aired on BBC Two in the UK on Saturday night (13 June 2013) and comparisons to recent shows such as The Killing and The Fall are inevitable.

For a start, Top of the Lake kicks off with a crime that’s been perpetrated against a young woman (more precisely a young girl in this case) and an investigation led by a strong-willed female detective. The drama has an eerie, malicious atmosphere, not dissimilar to many of the TV noir crime dramas we've seen recently, but also reminiscent of David Lynch’s uncanny crime series from the nineties, Twin Peaks.

Like The Fall and The Killing, Top of the Lake is visually very impressive – though it does have the advantage of being shot in the New Zealand countryside. But it isn't just the landscape that looks good, the whole drama is wonderfully shot; which shouldn't be surprising as the director (and co-creator) is Jane Campion – the latest high-profile film director to find refuge in television drama.

One welcome departure is that this seems to be a show that’s truly scary without being predictably violent against women (dog lovers might want to look away though). The victim of this particular crime might be a girl of only 12 but she is clearly a survivor (well I hope she is, the trailer for next week’s episode had me worried about her prospects). Played wonderfully by newcomer Jacqueline Joe, Tui Mitcham is a victim with strength and dignity; the shot of her riding on horseback towards possible sanctuary with a rifle strapped to her back suggested vulnerability at the same time as signalling that this is a character clearly not to be messed with.

The more conventional character is Detective Robin Griffin, played by Elisabeth Moss (best know for Peggy in Mad Men). With the usual range of personal problems to contend with, specifically a mother dying of cancer and a father recently dead (drowned in the lake of the title), Griffin might need more time to convince than the more outlandish characters. But she’s off to a good start; the scene in which she tackled a colleague about drinking on duty showed her understated determination and her willingness to stand up to the macho world she’s operating in. It was also very funny.

In fact, it’s humour that really sets Top of the Lake apart from other contemporary crime dramas. As well as being disturbed by the sinister atmosphere of the show I also found myself laughing out loud repeatedly. The scenes in the women’s camp were hilarious. But what was truly wonderful about it was that the women’s stories were also clearly tragic.

In this way, Top of the Lake achieved that rare thing, something for me that is the holy grail of good writing – to be funny and tragic at the same time. If dilemma is at the heart of all drama (trust me, it is) then there’s nothing better from a dramatists point of view than a story, a scene or a moment that makes the viewer unsure whether they should be laughing or crying. It’s that uncertainty that engages us and makes us want to continue watching.

I’ll certainly be watching again next week and no doubt I’ll find myself laughing at some terrible, tragic event. I just hope it doesn't involve young Tui and that cursed lake.

Changing Faces – or, growing up soap-style

Peter Beale returned to Albert Square last Friday (EastEnders Friday 7 June) and it looks like all that time spent surfing off the Devon coast has done him the world of good – he’s like a new man. Actually, he is a new man.

Ben Hardy as Peter Beale

The change from childhood to young adulthood is never an easy one but in soap-land the journey can often be more perilous than in life. Cute children regularly disappear, only to reappear at a later date as older, sexier (and in the case of females, often thinner) versions of their former selves. It’s a wonder that soap parents don’t ask more awkward questions about where their children have been and what they’ve been up to.

Perhaps the decision to change actors is driven by more than purely physical considerations. After all, the skills needed to play an adorable 10-year-old will be different than those needed to portray a rebellious teenager and different again to those required to convince as someone taking their first, uncertain steps into the adult world (or as a monstrous killer).

At EastEnders, these cast changes seem to happen fairly frequently. It’s not just Peter Beale (who’s now been played by four actors) who has transformed recently; last year Hetti Bywater took over the role of his sister, Lucy, from Melissa Suffield, who had played the part since 2004. Even little brother Bobby was re-cast earlier this year. Other recent changes have been made to the actors who play Lauren Branning and Ben Mitchell.

Obviously it’s not only in EastEnders that these transformations occur. Over on Emmerdale, Isabel Hodgins took over the role of Vicky Sugden from Hannah Midgley in 2006 and little Belle Dingle has had three actors play her already (including a baby boy).

Nor is it a new phenomenon; the first Tracy Barlow – Christabel Finch – retired to her room in No.1 Coronation Street in 1983 and wasn’t seen again for two years. And now she was being played by Holly Charmette. Charmette left in March 1988 and nine months later Tracy came back in the guise of 11-year-old Dawn Acton.

Dawn Acton

But does it have to happen? Can a child actor successfully navigate the path into adulthood and hold onto the role they were originally cast in?

Well, yes they can – Sam Aston has been Chesney Brown in Coronation Street since the character first appeared in 2003, taking the part from that of a loveable imp to the wronged husband he now portrays. But in soap, this journey just doesn’t seem to happen very often for a young actor; unlike, for example, in a long-running sitcom such as Outnumbered, where the cast of children has grown up on-screen before the viewers’ eyes.

I’d suggest the real reason for this difference lies in the format of the shows themselves, in the difference between the relentless, on-going nature of soap compared to the finite lifespan of other long-running shows. Soap has to go on (and on). And to do this it must constantly attract a new audience – a young audience that will then hopefully stick with the programme and continue watching as they get older. And what better way to appeal to a young audience than by giving them characters who can realistically embody the stories that they themselves are experiencing, or will be experiencing in a few years to come.

Kate Ford as Tracy Barlow

But maybe we should spare a thought for those young actors who don’t survive soap’s need to renew its audience. The list of youngsters who didn’t continue in their acting career is a long one, including Dawn Acton, who auditioned for the part of Tracy Barlow when it came up again in 2002, only to lose out to Kate Ford, who plays the role now.

Then again, Danniella Westbrook successfully revived her role as Sam Mitchell in 2009, after a nine-year break when the part was portrayed by Kim Medcalf. And Thomas Law, who played Peter Beale for four years before being replaced by Ben Hardy, recently secured the role of young Gary King in the new Simon Pegg-Edgar Wright movie, The World’s End, proving (if all goes well and he stays clear of Devon) that you can have a career as an actor after playing a soap youngster after all.

The Fall – murder never looked so good

As well as gaining a lot of praise, new BBC Two crime drama The Fall has also come in for criticism over its portrayal of a Belfast serial killer and his pursuit by an enigmatic police detective.

The murder of young women at the hands of male perpetrators is nothing new in crime shows. In fact, it’s a staple of the genre, including the most critically acclaimed continental dramas of the last few years such as Spiral and The Killing (which The Fall has been compared to). So why has The Fall been criticised so much?

Is it perhaps because we see the killer at work? Does the idea that Paul Spector (played by Jamie Dornan) can have a successful career as a grief counsellor somehow go against our image of an average serial killer? Or is it because we see that he has a family life? That he takes his kids to the park and cuddles them at night? Is the problem that we see him being a loving father?

Some of the criticism of the show has been levelled at the fact that the audience actually sees Spector commit his crimes on screen. This is a departure from the way these stories are usually told, and an interesting twist that was bound to get the show more attention, but for me it isn’t the real problem with The Fall, that lies elsewhere.

There’s a lot I like about The Fall. I like the writing, I like the setting, I like the performances – Gillian Anderson is superb as DSI Stella Gibson. But my problem is this: I like how it looks.

It looks GREAT – from the handsome cast to the handsome shots of the handsome locations. But what drama doesn’t look great at the moment? Have you seen the dental care that’s clearly available in the post-apocalyptic world of Sky’s Revolution?

Maybe it’s a US influence, maybe it’s a reflection of how we want to see ourselves now, but it seems to me every TV show, and everybody in a TV show, has to look great these days. Even if you’re a serial killer, you have to be a goddamn sexy serial killer.

Now, I’m not saying that bad people have to be ugly, I’d just rather have drama reflect reality a little more. And yes, I realise that the desire for the money to be seen on screen has always been around but it seems to me with the coming of HD, that desire has become more readily realised.

Let’s face it, the reality of murder is hideous (I imagine). And the juxtaposition of the glamorous, high definition portrayal of murder on television and its hideous reality is hard to take.

So I guess that’s my problem with The Fall – it makes murder sexy. And obviously it’s not. Unless it’s on TV.

RIVER CITY, 21 May 2013 – soap at its best. Just don’t call it soap

Why do we watch soaps? I guess one of the reasons is they reflect our lives while turning the dial up a notch or two. Soap stories play out in the domestic realm, in the houses, flats, streets and squares that we all recognise, but they play out in a big way, a world apart from our own humdrum lives (hopefully).

And like any good story, a good soap story will involve characters who are faced with dilemmas, tough choices that we would struggle with if we were faced with them ourselves. Soaps allow us to vicariously experience the consequences of making the wrong choices in life.

Like the decision to sleep with somebody else when you’re married. This decision, and the terrible consequences it has for all involved, was the focus of last week’s episode of the BBC One Scotland drama, River City.

The A-story of the episode sees Bob Adams (played by Stephen Purdon) coming to understand that his wife, Stella (Keira Lucchesi), has not only slept with their friend, Stevie (Paul-James Corrigan), but that the pair are also in love. As anyone who follows the show knows, poor Bob doesn’t have much luck with women (an understatement if there ever was one), so while this latest tragedy in his love-life might not come as a huge surprise, it has to endear the lovable loser to the viewers’ hearts just that little bit more.

What makes the deception even more tragic is that Bob knows his lack of attention towards Stella caused her to stray into Stevie’s arms. Bob’s been in a bad place recently and his depression has seen him withdraw from the world and from his wife. Add to this that the depression was triggered by the death of his best friend and awfulness of the situation is only compounded.

Stephen Purdon plays Bob Adams

River City, BBC One Scotland, Tuesday 21/5/13, 8pm

This really is drama at its best; layered, emotionally engaging and full of grey areas. It is a story that we can easily relate to but one that we would hope not to have to go through ourselves.

Which can also be said of the B-story of the episode, which concerned two sisters and the impact on their lives of their father’s worsening dementia.

Gina (Libby McArthur) and Eileen (Deirdre Davis), together with their dad, Malcolm (Johnny Beattie), have been at the heart of River City since the very first episode in 2002. To see the sisters struggling to cope with Malcolm’s illness while trying to maintain their own relationships is heartbreaking – and again, great drama.

Add to this a C- story (closely tied-in with the A-story) that has matriarch Scarlett Mullen (Sally Howitt) struggling not to interfere with her beloved son Bob’s marriage crisis and writer Viv Adam gives us all the ingredients of a classic soap episode.

Only River City isn’t a soap, it’s a one-hour continuing drama. The decision was made in 2007 to combine what used to be two half-hour episodes, aired twice a week, into a single one-hour episode transmitted on a Tuesday evening, and since then River City hasn’t officially been a soap. And it’s been clear that from this time, the show has struggled to find a new identity; genre dictates that a soap is 30-minutes long, 60-minute continuing dramas in the slot River City occupies are traditionally precinct dramas like Casualty or Holby. River City is none of these.

For me, and I suspect that for many of the fans of the show who have watched from the beginning, the struggle is a false one – when I watch River City, I am watching a soap. It might be one-hour long, it might be on only one evening a week (though repeated at the weekend), but it is a soap. Soap is in the DNA of the show.

What’s really important isn’t how River City is seen, but it’s that people get to see it. It always grated with me when watching the British Soap Awards (last shown on ITV on Sunday 19 May) that River City was never included, even when it was 30-minutes long, as it’s only shown on BBC One Scotland.

Until it’s aired on network BBC, the real tragedy is that viewers in the rest of the UK won’t be able to enjoy the dramatic goings-on among the Shieldinch community. Because when it is at its best, River City is as good as, even better than, any of the soaps that won awards last Sunday. Just don’t call it soap.

Doctor Who – sci-fi with laughter and tears

Well that was a series finale-and-a-half, wasn’t it? ‘The Name of the Doctor’, the last episode of the latest series of Doctor Who, was one of the best I’ve seen for a long time. Maybe since Neil Gaiman’s ‘The Doctor’s Wife’.

The run hasn’t had the best press, garnering criticism for its lackadaisical plots and lack of tension, and while I wouldn’t agree with all the criticism, it has to be acknowledged that Doctor Who seems to have lost something since its triumphant return in 2005. It got me thinking...

As well as enjoying the intricate plot of tonight’s episode, and revelling in the most complex character British TV has ever invented, I was struck while watching ‘The Name of the Doctor’ how much I appreciate being made to laugh and cry when watching sci-fi on TV. (Strax is one of my favourite recent characters, and having him fight a pot-wielding Glaswegian just made him all the more loveable).

And I think this appeal to the emotions is something which can easily get lost in British sci-fi productions, perhaps in British drama productions altogether? Or perhaps in sci-fi altogether.

What I loved about the latest big-screen outing of the Star Trek franchise was the re-kindling of the crucial relationship between Kirk and Spock. As well as being the engine (sorry Scotty) that drives the emotional journey of the plot, Kirk and Spock’s relationship is unashamedly TENDER and also gives rise to the key scene of the movie, a scene that I would challenge any trek-meister (is that less offensive that trekkie?) not to shed a Vulcan-like tear at. I loved it.

Doctor Who has always been able to be funny – the eccentricity of the Doctor and the sheer camp wobbly-set-ness of the show has guaranteed that. But maybe it’s been lacking a little tenderness, a little human connection? That’s probably true, but after seeing tonight’s episode I feel hopeful for the next 50 years of the show. Not because (sorry, spoiler alert if you haven't watched it yet) I saw the Doctor cry tonight, but because I saw real love and self-sacrifice at the heart of the drama, when Clara... okay, I won’t say any more – spoilers etc.

Anyway, after seeing ‘The Name of the Doctor’, I feel pretty optimistic about November 2013, especially as David Tennant and Billie Piper are going to be a part of the 50^th celebrations. Unless they reprise their turn on that scooter in ‘The Idiot Lantern’... because that wasn’t funny or tender at all.