The "foreign soaps" topic

[JamesF]

He left Corrie, supposedly because he "wasn't enjoying it anymore" which I don't totally swallow. I don't think he was fired because he was the best scriptwriter they had but I think there was a financial impetus to it. He left to create Hollyoaks: In the City I think it was -- the one about the modelling agency. I thought it was crap given his talent and didn't get renewed. No idea what he's up to now.

And no there are no respected soap columnists I'm aware of. There are sort of...soap gurus like Jaci Stephen (ugh), Sharon Marshall (ugh) and Tina Baker (meh) but they just do spoiler columns, nothing particularly incisive.

[Sylph]

Thanks for the info, James!

P. S. What on Earth is this (X-rated sex??) :

[Sylph]

P. P. S. I saw Darran listed as the writer on one of those Hollyoaks episodes Faulkner mentioned.

[JamesF]

God those soap magazines are so misleading. It must have been a slow week if they had to hype up some PG rated sex scene.

I had no idea Darran was writing for Hollyoaks but that show is now being produced by Tony Wood and Carolyn Reynolds -- two very respected ex Corrie producers. I can see why he made the leap if he has strong working relationships with them. They were responsible for the 2001 revamp and the success of the Richard Hillman storyline.

[KSlater]

JamesF -- you were right about the stories "clicking" on EastEnders. I'm now up to the point were Shawn is being held in custody at the police station. The omnibus for that week rocked! I'm still not sure who committed the crime against Patrick--although I suspect it's Lucy's boyfriend, who seems a bit on the Columbine side. I'm really surprised at how Lucy looks like she's going to be a little hell raiser. The young cast on the show -- they are outstanding and I'm finding myself just as interested in their stories as the adults. Can't wait for more.

[KSlater]

I don't know how respected this columnist is in the UK, but I enjoy reading what she has to say about soaps. Her name is Grace Dent. Here's a link to her column in the Guardian.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguide/columni...2150241,00.html

[Sylph]

Coronation Street takes Best Soap award

Times Online and agencies

Coronation Street has taken the title of Best Soap at today’s Inside Soap awards.

It was one of five gongs for the ITV show, putting it on equal footing with rival programme EastEnders. The draw was a good result for Coronation Street, which has not won the title of Best Soap in over a decade.

One of the show’s actor’s Antony Cotton, who plays barman Sean Tully, took home the Best Actor award, while Rob James-Collier, the Street's Liam Connor, won Sexiest Male and Best Newcomer. Actor Jack P Shepherd won Best Bad Boy for playing David Platt.

EastEnders actress Lacey Turner won Best Actress for her role as Stacey Slater, and together with on-screen fiance Charlie Clements (Bradley Branning), she also won the award for Best Couple. Best Bitch was won by Sophie Thompson, who played Phil Mitchell's crazed lover Stella.

Kara Tointon, who plays Dawn Swann in EastEnders, won the Best-Dressed award, while Stella's torment of Phil's son, Ben, took Best Storyline.

Emmerdale picked up two gongs, including Best Young Actor, won by Eden Taylor-Draper, who plays Belle Dingle. Charlie Hardwick was awarded this year's Funniest Performance for his role as Val Lambert.

Hollyoaks actress Roxanne McKee, who plays Louise Summers, was named Sexiest Actress.

The Bill was awarded Best Drama for the second year running.

Coronation Street was also named Best Soap at the TVQuick and TVChoice awards earlier this month.

Inside Soap magazine editor Steven Murphy said: "This was one of the most hotly contested years for the Inside Soap Awards, and it's wonderful to see so many new names on the winners' list.

"The race for Best Soap was neck and neck until voting closed, which just proves what an outstanding year it's been in soapland."

The awards were voted for by readers of Inside Soap magazine.

The winners

Best Actor

Antony Cotton (Sean Tully, Coronation Street)

Best Actress

Lacey Turner (Stacey Slater, EastEnders)

Sexiest Male

Rob James-Collier (Liam Connor, Coronation Street)

Sexiest Female

Roxanne McKee (Louise Summers, Hollyoaks)

Best Young Actor

Eden Taylor-Draper (Belle Dingle, Emmerdale)

Best Newcomer

Rob James-Collier (Liam Connor, Coronation Street)

Best Bad Boy

Jack P Shepherd (David Platt, Coronation Street)

Best Bitch

Sophie Thompson (Stella Crawford, EastEnders)

Best Couple

Lacey Turner and Charlie Clements (Stacey and Bradley, EastEnders)

Funniest Character

Charlie Hardwick (Val Lambert, Emmerdale)

Best-Dressed

Kara Tointon (Dawn Swann, EastEnders)

Best Drama

The Bill

Best Storyline

Stella's torment of Ben (EastEnders)

Best Soap

Coronation Street

[JamesF]

These awards are a bit of a sham. Particularly Antony Cotton for Best Actor. I think not.

[Huntress]

"Alles was zählt" has been on fire lately. I can only encourage you to watch the episodes online - even though it's in German.

My personal picks:

Episode 243: http://rtl-now.rtl.de/awz_player.php?film_id=1685 (Axel blackmails the whole Steinkamp family)

Episode 244: http://rtl-now.rtl.de/awz_player.php?film_id=1701 (Robin is killed)

Episode 257: http://rtl-now.rtl.de/awz_player.php?film_id=1940 (Deniz and Roman grow closer)

Episode 263: http://rtl-now.rtl.de/awz_player.php?film_id=2055 (Ice skating world cup - Diana vs Jenny)

Episode 266: http://rtl-now.rtl.de/awz_player.php?film_id=2111 (Deniz and Roman's first kiss)

"Verbotene Liebe" and "Marienhof" will be available online pretty soon as well, because the ARD will be launching a similar service to rtl-now.de. It's still unknown if you have to pay it for. On rtl-now.de you have to pay for the episodes of "Gute Zeiten, Schlechte Zeiten" and "Unter uns", but "Alles was zählt" is still available for free.

[Sylph]

Writers’ Guild of Great Britain Awards 2007 - Shortlist

Best Original Drama (TV)

• Victoria Wood - Housewife, 49
• Peter Morgan - Longford
• Neil McKay - See No Evil: The Moors Murders

Best Soap / Series (TV)

• Various - Dr Who
• Various - New Tricks
• Various – Life on Mars

Best Comedy / Light Entertainment (TV)

• Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Tony Roche - The Thick of It
• Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant - Extras
• James Corden and Ruth Jones - Gavin & Stacey

Best Play (Theatre)

• Gregory Burke - Black Watch
• Peter Morgan - Frost/Nixon
• Tom Stoppard - Rock 'n' Roll

Best Screenplay (Feature Film)

• Tony Grisoni - Lives Of The Saints
• Paul Laverty - The Wind That Shakes The Barley
• Jeremy Brock and Peter Morgan - The Last King Of Scotland (based on the book by Giles Foden)
• Shane Meadows - This Is England

Best Radio Play

• Charles Wood – Conspiracy at Sevres
• Mark Lawson – Expand This
• Steve Gooch - McNaughton

Best Videogame Script

• Charles Cecil and Neil Richards - Broken Sword: Angel of Death
• Dan Houser, James Worrall and David Bland - Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories
• Dan Houser and John Zurhellen - Canis Canem Edit

[heatherwebber]

I'm still not sure who committed the crime against Patrick--although I suspect it's Lucy's boyfriend, who seems a bit on the Columbine side. ""'

That was my theory too.

I've noticed the new Mitchell girls seem to be taking up a lot of airtime lately.

The other big thing I saw on the most recent week was a lot of stuff about Pat & Shirley as everyone took off to Brighton. There was some major emotional material about Pat's sister who might never have been mentioned in all these years.

[Sylph]

[Sylph]

Huntress, when you stop by next time, could you please tell me what is Unter uns (Between Us?) about?

[dannigold]

Media guardian article about Diederick Santer's work on EastEnders

With ratings at an all-time low, it looked as though EastEnders had lost the plot - until, that is, the arrival of a new leading man

Soap operas are all about tension and drama, but it is probably not a good sign when the action behind the scenes seems more interesting than what is happening on the screen. When EastEnders' executive producer Diederick Santer was appointed a year ago, he was stepping into a job that had been vacated three times in the preceding two years, while the tabloids screamed about cast v producer rows, midnight filming sessions and star walkouts.

"The return of Dirty Den got massive ratings, but did lasting damage. Den was dead. You can't bring him back" Although the show had begun the 21st century in a healthy state - even winning the debut clash of the soaps in 2001 when it was scheduled against Coronation Street for the first time - 2004 saw ratings in sharp decline with new low following new low. Producer Louise Berridge quit in September of that year as viewer numbers hit a record trough of 6.2 million. Kathleen Hutchison came in from Holby City to axe characters and revamp the show but she only lasted to January 2005 when she was replaced by Kate Harwood. Ratings were back up that Christmas, but slumped again in the summer of 2006 with two successive all-time worsts of 5.2 million and 3.9 million. The tabloids had a field day.

"Emmerdale had scheduled one of their hour specials against us, it was the World Cup and it was very hot," Santer says carefully. "It was one of those blips that worked quite well as a summer story. In fact, we'd had an almost clean sweep at the National TV Awards that year. I wouldn't say it was a low point. The show had faced a big problem two to three years ago when it lost a number of the cast it had relied on for years - Shane Richie, Jessie Wallace as Kat, Kasey Ainsworth as Little Mo, Letitia Dean as Sharon. Those characters had been the heart of the show for a good while. I don't think it could be underestimated what a challenge it was to have all those characters moving on at once. I think we're still recovering from it, actually."

Even so, the task must have seemed daunting to a man who had spent his first six years at the BBC producing Cutting It, The Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado About Nothing and Jane Eyre. "Lorraine Heggessey said that when EastEnders is doing well the BBC does well," says John Yorke, controller of BBC drama production studios and the man who appointed Santer. "That's a huge burden, but EastEnders is really what the BBC should be about - serving mainstream drama to a mass, diverse, primetime audience."

The numbers suggest he is getting something right. Although Coronation Street is still ahead, the show ranges comfortably between 8.5 and 9.8 million across an average week. "This summer, EastEnders storylines have been great - much more soapy," says Steven Murphy, editor of Inside Soap. "We've had the climax to the Ben and Stella child abuse story that combined a wedding with real drama, and we've had the end to the Dawn and mad Dr May baby story which was only really plodding along before. Our readers are really engaged with it at the moment."

Jane Tranter, controller of fiction at the BBC, credits Santer for the strong storylines. "When we brought him in it was because he's a great storytelling producer and works really well with writers," she explains. "He's also not afraid of a little humour, which shows in the breadth of the storylines and the flamboyance, colour and life that he brings to characters."

On paper, however, Santer's CV might suggest positively highbrow aspirations. He graduated from Leeds University in Psychology and the History and Philosophy of Science, spent time as an actor on the fringe and is just back from the Emmy awards, where his Jane Eyre was heavily nominated. "I'm slightly wary of making those highbrow lowbrow comparisons," he frowns through his unruly mop of hair. "The objective for a producer is the same - take the audience into a character's head, be as entertaining as possible and have as many contrasts in the journey - funny, scary, etc - as it can be."

One of his recent storylines did have a whiff of Bronte about it, however. Ian Beale's daughter Lucy thought she was being contacted by her dead mother Cindy - although the messages turned out to be from

"That's true," he nods. "It's a classic madwoman in the attic story, but I hate those articles where someone who works in popular television says what they do is like Dickens. It's about the balance. That story works because it has an old character whom the audience love - Ian Beale - as well as new characters who have an appeal for teenagers fresh to the show. Soap audiences like continuity. They dip in and out and if they haven't watched for a few weeks, then tune in to find no one they recognise, it can be disconcerting."

This is why he refrained from swinging the axe himself. "I don't think those crazy axings or revolutions really work," he argues. "The only successful one was Brian Park at Corrie, where he very quickly changed it around. These shows are too big and intricate, with so much forward-planning. What you think about in January comes on to the screen in August."

The other temptation Santer avoided was calling back a much-loved character from the grave, or a similar piece of OTT hysteria, simply to get the headlines. "A storyline like who shot Phil Mitchell is very successful and gets your soap talked about but they come at a cost - they're often so big they're a bit unreal. You can't do them every month. There was a phase in EastEnders when it became too accelerated and a bit unbelievable. The return of Dirty Den in 2002 says it all. It got massive ratings, it was the biggest soap story of the year, but it was the story that most undermined the show and did lasting damage. Den was dead. You can't bring him back. It's a Bobby Ewing in the shower moment."

What he is hoping to do is bring a bit of realism to a depiction of the East End that was criticised by the Commission for Racial Equality for being excessively white. "You have to be careful about being too realistic," he cautions. "It could be argued all these characters wouldn't go to the launderette - they might have washing machines. But then you wouldn't have the same show. Having said that, we have to diversify. We're doing that with the background artists, we've opened a sari and fabric shop, and in ambient ways we're making the show feel more 21st century." If he gets that right, he argues, running the vast company that is EastEnders won't simply be about managing decline. "What we offer that other things on TV don't is that collective experience four times a week. If you get the right storytelling and right character, you get watercooler moments. Whether the platform remains BBC1 or if it's download-only in 20 years' time, there'll be that premier point when you can download it for the first time." Then he breaks out into a grin. "After all, one of the positive things about all that press coverage was that it proved our characters still sell newspapers."

[Drew]

Corrie is pretty good right now, so I'm not surprised they got that award. In Canada we're seeing stuff from January. Tracy's still plotting to kill Charlie, and the Jamie/Frankie/Danny triangle just ended. Good stuff.