A British soap opera almost always features the following conventions:
- It is a serialised drama that usually runs week-in, week-out, all year round.
- It features continuous storylines (or ‘narratives’) dealing with domestic themes and personal or family relationships.
- It generally has a well-known theme tune and intro sequence which has changed little over the years.
Though the casts for soap operas tend to be bigger than for drama series, there is a limit to the number of characters available at any one time. This allows the soap to focus on a smaller number of characters, thus allowing more time to be spent on each, so that the audience knows them better and the storylines can be more detailed and involved, as well as being more numerous over time.
The plots are open-ended and usually many storylines are featured or even interlinked in an episode. Often they follow the same issue, with, for example, two characters dealing with the break-up of a relationship. The storylines in these cases run parallel.
They are often set around a small, central area such as a square (as in EastEnders) or a cul-de-sac (such as Brookside). Sometimes, there is something else connecting the characters. For example, most of the characters in El Dorado were ex-pats who all lived in a same British-dominated ghetto of Spain.
Soaps often have special episodes for events in the real world such as Christmas or the Millennium. Some special episodes focus on long-departed characters, or current characters who travel to a location outside of their usual surroundings (such as Brookside’s ‘South’, which saw Tracy Corkhill and her boyfriend run away to London). Such episodes are often referred to as ‘soap bubbles’ as they are often self-contained and have little impact on the on-going stories of the regular show.
British soaps most often feature common, ordinary, working class characters, in stark contrast to American soaps, which tend to deal with richer, flashier, more fantasy-inspired characters, reflecting the preferences of their respective target audiences.
As a rule, British soaps are realistic or, at least, aim for realism.
Soap episodes often begin with a ‘hook’ in which one or more of the narratives from a previous episode are continued. The episode will undoubtedly end with a ‘cliff-hanger’, which is a tense and suspenseful, unconcluded piece of dialogue or action when, for example, a character finds out that their fiancée has just died - cue zoom-in on their traumatised face.
Three, four or even five storylines will be in progress during any one episode, with the action switching between them. As one narrative is resolved, another completely different one with different characters will already be underway. The characters go from quiet, harmonic (but uninteresting) periods to chaotic, confusing (but interesting) dilemmas. The action simply concentrates solely on the latter.
- It is a serialised drama that usually runs week-in, week-out, all year round.
- It features continuous storylines (or ‘narratives’) dealing with domestic themes and personal or family relationships.
- It generally has a well-known theme tune and intro sequence which has changed little over the years.
Though the casts for soap operas tend to be bigger than for drama series, there is a limit to the number of characters available at any one time. This allows the soap to focus on a smaller number of characters, thus allowing more time to be spent on each, so that the audience knows them better and the storylines can be more detailed and involved, as well as being more numerous over time.
The plots are open-ended and usually many storylines are featured or even interlinked in an episode. Often they follow the same issue, with, for example, two characters dealing with the break-up of a relationship. The storylines in these cases run parallel.
They are often set around a small, central area such as a square (as in EastEnders) or a cul-de-sac (such as Brookside). Sometimes, there is something else connecting the characters. For example, most of the characters in El Dorado were ex-pats who all lived in a same British-dominated ghetto of Spain.
Soaps often have special episodes for events in the real world such as Christmas or the Millennium. Some special episodes focus on long-departed characters, or current characters who travel to a location outside of their usual surroundings (such as Brookside’s ‘South’, which saw Tracy Corkhill and her boyfriend run away to London). Such episodes are often referred to as ‘soap bubbles’ as they are often self-contained and have little impact on the on-going stories of the regular show.
British soaps most often feature common, ordinary, working class characters, in stark contrast to American soaps, which tend to deal with richer, flashier, more fantasy-inspired characters, reflecting the preferences of their respective target audiences.
As a rule, British soaps are realistic or, at least, aim for realism.
Soap episodes often begin with a ‘hook’ in which one or more of the narratives from a previous episode are continued. The episode will undoubtedly end with a ‘cliff-hanger’, which is a tense and suspenseful, unconcluded piece of dialogue or action when, for example, a character finds out that their fiancée has just died - cue zoom-in on their traumatised face.
Three, four or even five storylines will be in progress during any one episode, with the action switching between them. As one narrative is resolved, another completely different one with different characters will already be underway. The characters go from quiet, harmonic (but uninteresting) periods to chaotic, confusing (but interesting) dilemmas. The action simply concentrates solely on the latter.