Monday 16 December 2019

Soap Opera Thoughts? Just A Bit Of Fun!

 Apparently  there are over 350 million blogs in the world.    That's 350 million writers.  Imagine if Shakespeare had a blog would he have ever got published?   There's  a lot more competition and writers these  days you know!  

I penned the following a few years ago and some of the soap characters have changed but..?  

I think soap operas are made by the governments “ Ministry Of  How To Keep Them Down Department”.  We will show Joe Public and his wife that life is really crap on the telly, electric fish tank.  There is no chance of it ever getting any better.  So be content with what you’ve got and it doesn’t matter who left the top off the toothpaste, does it?  
Let’s look at Coronation Street for example.  Most of the character are promiscuous, a potential murderer, a hopeless cook and alcoholic.   Sounds like a pet rabbit I used to know?  Or was it a bar maid?
 Betty Turpins “Lovely Hotpot” is usually the staple diet, washed down with a pint of Newton and Ridley.  Nobody goes home to eat, they just drop into Roy’s cafe or the Rovers return.  Well after all, the characters do reside in the same street. 
The street is cobbled like all northern streets and northern motorways are supposed to be.  Even the railway lines.  Jack Duckworth even kept pigeons in his backyard.  They never show the ferrets and whippets though do they? Or the dolly tub and donkey stones!  Think on now script writers.
At the time of writing this piece (it’s been on the back boiler of my writing department for a few years ).  Poor Sally Webster had just been diagnosed with breast cancer.  What a lovely story theme for Christmas time.  It must be wonderful (or not), for anybody who is suffering or knows somebody with the dreaded big C.  Why does it always  have to be like the news, sad and thoroughly depressing? 
You can just imagine the following telephone conversation from the Samaritans call centre: 
“So you’re depressed and suicidal.  Is it because you are homeless and unemployed and recently divorced?” 
Caller: “Oh no it’s not that.  My problem is far worse than that.  I have just watched Coronation Street.”
The trouble is millions and trillions of people tune in at seven thirty and get their fill of soap opera doom and gloom. 
 They even cause an enormous electricity surge at 7.45pm.  Millions of people are putting on the kettle (it won’t fit them) and making a “lovely cup of tea”.  Before people sit down and wallow in the despair of the soap opera.   I have never recovered from Ken Barlow’s wife getting electrocuted (they never played the Cornet  at the  end of the programme) or Alan Bradley getting flattened by a Blackpool tram.  I think the council (in real life!)  have even put up a sign marking the spot where he was killed.  Poor old Alan Bradley!
This programme must be watched religiously three times a week, not forgetting the omnibus edition at the weekend.  God help anybody speak or want to watch the “footie ball” match on  the other channel.  Sky probably?
I think there is one way to solve the soap opera problem.  I will become a soap opera script writer. 
Shall I let you into a secret? 
Plot 1 Coronation Street.   Norris and Roy talk too much verbal diarrhoea resulting in a major gas mains explosion- no survivors!  End of programme.  Plot 2.  Eastenders:   Too many portions of jellied eels in Ian’s Cafe.  Yet another enormous gas explosion- No survivors.  Plot  3. Emmerdale; Methane gas from cow causes giant explosion- No survivors. 
Plot 4: Home and Away: Skippy the bush kangaroo farts while cooking on the Barbie, resulting in a massive explosion- No survivors. 

End of all soap operas.  People rejoice and think about what we did before we had television.  Chemists talk of massive contraceptive shortages.   Tea  companies make massive financial losses.  No more "nice" cups of tea at a quarter to eight in the evening!

26 comments:

  1. I am one of those stupid people who switch on the television ready to watch one or all the soaps yet don't hear a thing. It's as if my hearing has gone and I don't notice it. How come? Why, because I have lost interest in the characters, and deffo can't get with the story lines. So, I ask myself, why the hell do I switch on the tele at all?
    It is easier to read a book LOL.

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    Replies
    1. Hi Valerie. Thanks for your television thoughts. I find it hard to concentrate when I read books. I just skip through them these days. Think the internet changes our reading habits. I must start listening to radio again. They use to call it: the theatre of the mind. Thanks!

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  2. This made me laugh so much. But you touched on something that really changed my tv viewing habits.
    I was diagnosed with cancer almost at the same time as Sally Dynevor who played Sally in coronation st. I could not bear to watch and just stopped. Completely. I used to watch two other soaps. I stopped those too. They were so very depressing.
    I am very selective these days, the tv only goes on at 5:15pm for pointless and then the news. I would much rather have the radio and my audible books.

    We get sucked in to all sorts of rubbish and then it becomes habit.

    Roll on spring and then I can get back on my allotment!

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Christina. Yes it puts you off watching a favourite programme when the topic is so close to home. I prefer reading and writing blogs to a lot of today's television, Although I still watch it every night. I would go mad if I didn't have my polytunnel. I have my own veg plot but you never talk to anyone like you do if you tend an allotment. Thanks again.

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  3. This really made me laugh! Thank you. I have a friend who is a mental health nurse. She tells people to watch the soaps and then you will realise your own life is not so bad! I stopped watching this so called form of entertainment when a baby died in Emmerdale. How is that entertaining if you have been in that position? Thank God, it has never happened to me but it was just a step too far.Thanks again.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you Irish Maureen. I think your mental health nurse has got it spot on. Glenroe was my favourite Irish soap and there was always lots of humour thrown in. Thanks again!

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  4. Oh this made me laugh. You write with such wit!
    We do not have a television here, but watch YouTube instead. I watched Eastenders from when it first started in the UK, but the story lines got silly over time, but I was hooked. Leaving the tele back in the UK was a relief because it broke my addiction!

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  5. Thanks Vera, l use to love the soaps back in the eighties like Emmerdale Farm, Coronation Street and Eastenders. They were pure escapism for half an hour. Great actors and scripts too.

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  6. You may be nearer the truth than you know.

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  7. The Ministry Of How To Keep Them Down Department, Gwil? Our conversation on your blog about you meeting Jack Duckworth and me getting a signed BW photograph for my mum off Patricia Phoenix, made me decide to post this one. Like yourself I loved the old original Coronation Street characters. It was sheer cat amongst the pigeons stuff without all the modern day issues like today's soaps. People want escapism for half an hour not grim reality. Thanks Gwil.

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    Replies
    1. The Ministry of Information. If there had been a nuclear incident for example you might have seen the Corrers folk whitewashing their windows.

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  8. Protect and Survive was such a film in 1976. Paint everywhere white (blonde) and hide in the fridge. I mean under the table. Forgive the political satire Gwil. We both share a good sense of humour.

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  9. Many millions of people still watch them, so they get the escapism. My mother used to watch Coronation Street and at one time she was in hospital for four months and never saw a single episode during that time. When she eventually came home she just carried on watching as if she had never been away without any puzzling about what was happening apparently. Your joke about the caller who is upset on the phone to the Samaritans I am sure has happened. My mother used to get quite carried away about the story lines. And what about Who Shot JR? in the 1980s. There used to be signs up on the road side of main roads in great big letters "Who Shot JR". Great post Dave.

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  10. My friend Rachel! Thanks for your thoughts about the soaps. It's incredible how they resonate with us all.

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  11. I've religiously watched Corrie all my life and yet I am not particularly bothered about it! I think it is more of a tradition or a ritual for me. I believe it stems from Wednesday evenings when as a child my Nan and other relatives would visit and we all watched it together. When it finished I had to go to bed! :)

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  12. Hi Simone. It was a ritual in our house too. My mother would always be telling one of to be quiet. Then Eastenders came along and we had to watch that too. I liked Emmerdale Farm and lost interest when it became just Emmerdale. Thanks Simone.

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Onion Set Planting.

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