Soap

Whilst watching 'Ugly Betty' last night I was struck by how familiar one of the actors was, and yet I couldn't put a name to the face. In fact, so strong was the feeling of familiarity that I was sure he must be British. I looked up the character on imdb.com and indeed, he had a long, long list of credits and yet I knew I didn't recognise him from 'ER' or the 'X-Files', or even 'Space Above and Beyond', one of my all-time favourite sci-fis.
I scrolled further and further down until finally, there it was. As I live and breath, Jim Robinson from the Aussie soap, 'Neighbours'.

Holy smoke, what a fan of that I used to be, never missed an episode. I don't know whether Aussie soaps have ever caught on on this side of the Atlantic, but they were smoking hot in Britain, may still be on for all I know.

I think the reason Aussie soaps appeal to the British is that they are very much like our own ones, in that they are realistic and well-acted. My perception of American ones is that they are or were, either one or the other.

I'm not sure whether Dynasty and Dallas really counted as Soaps, but in a way they were, and yet the settings were huge and unrealistic, these were not ordinary families, these were ridiculously wealthy people doing ridiculously stupid things, but they had big name actors, stars already.
By contrast, the ones you can catch during the daytime seem to be played by people who didn't get in to acting school.

Neighbours and Home and Away, the two main Aussie Soaps we used to have, may have been famous for the shifting scenery, but the acting was good, the people were ordinary people, albeit who lived in rather larger houses than most British people, and who did perfectly ordinary things, although maybe they did rather more ordinary things than the average Jill.

Our beloved British Soaps are much the same. In Coronation Street and Eastenders, the people live in the types of houses and flats that British people actually live in, they speak with the accents of the area. The action in both often centres around a pub, as life often does in Britain, perhaps not to the same extent, we don't actually spend every evening in pubs as a general rule. One I used to enjoy was the Liverpool-set Brookside. Brookie, sadly is no longer running, but the actors who made a start there still appear regularly on TV and in films. Appearing in a Soap isn't the career death knell it used to be.

I watched both Eastenders and Corrers (more often referred to as 'Corrie') for many years, and then I just stopped. I don't know why. I still like that they are there, that I could just turn on and watch if I wanted to, yes even here in Canada, I know my cousin watches Corrers and last night I noticed that Eastenders was on BBC Canada.

It's something about the safety net of the universe, to know that whatever happens during the day, whatever crap is going on in your life, you can turn it off for half an hour in the evening and get involved in the lives of other people, old friends, Neighbours even.