Brookside R.I.P. Any fans out there?

Here we are, folks. New home. This started on another thread but it's not good practice to hijack threads so I've just done a crude cut'n'paste and set up camp her. Just call this The Close:

The original thread was (and still is) called What I did today. I bent that a bit to write about what I'm planning to do this Saturday (24th Nov)

isthisallthereis Thu 22-Nov-12 18:51:58
First to Sheffield for a promising BBC new writers event.

Then I'm travelling on to Liverpool to attend a Brookside reunion. Always a bit nervous about reunions. Will I remember people, yet alone recognise them? Will anyone remember or recognise me (it was all 30 yrs ago!) I have to go thinking Yes to all that. Also not everyone got on, so it may not all be sweetness and light! But they were very happy times working in telly in the early 80's so I'm going very much in that spirit

crimson Thu 22-Nov-12 18:59:08
It was brilliant. I only realised that when I went through a divorce and there was an affair/divorce storyline going on in Brookside. Things that happened and things that were said were like a mirror image of what was happening in my life. Had I watched it years earlier I would have thought it too far too removed from reality. It's probably the only soap I've ever followed [although I missed the early years]. A friend of mine used to write for Dr Who. When he died I was given a dvd with a pilot show he'd written. Doug Naylor was in it playing an alien, as was the guy who became Mr Blobby! It never made it to the telly, unfortunately . It's so bad it's good ifyougetwotimean....

annodomini Thu 22-Nov-12 19:44:31
isthis - I loved Brookside! It was seismically ground-breaking with such a multitude of controversial themes and a lot of humour. Shame it had to end, but saying that, it probably did end at the right time.

isthisallthereis Thu 22-Nov-12 20:13:41
Hey I love the comments about Brookside. I'll pass them on on Saturday. The early years definitely the best I think. Strong characters, especially the Grant parents, and real, biting storylines. It probably ran two or three years past when it should have ended. But with different handling, couldn't it still be running?? The other big soaps survive and survive the odd dip. Brookside for some reason didn't.

Any theories why?

btw one of the best things for us working on it, including the actors, was that it was so innovative behind the cameras. As well as genuinely groundbreaking scripts. All other soaps were (and still are) shot mainly in studios on 3-wall sets. Brookie we shot in real houses on a real close. And PR (Phil Redmond) wouldn't allow walls to be removed or camera hatches to be cut. The rooms were tiny, especially the bedrooms, but we had to stage scenes and shoot in them somehow. Very demanding (and therefore very rewarding) for camera crew, sound, lighting. It made a big difference to the way the show looked. Phil was totally right. And it was all shot with a single camera, like a film. Not multi camera like a sit-com. And liberal use of Stedicam, unlike any other telly show I've ever directed. All that tecchy side could have continued as cameras, and now lights too, have got smaller and smaller. New writers would have come forward. More of them women, more of them non-white.

So. Why didn't Brookside survive when other soaps have??

Shall I start another thread? This is off topic. Or are there only a vert few of us interested and it'll fizzle out? How to know?

crimson Thu 22-Nov-12 20:20:21
I think other soaps carried on where Brookside left off but they are now full of murders, kidnappings, fires etc etc [I'm only going by what I see in the radio times as I don't watch them].And it was Brookside that started those sort of stories [bodies under patios I seem to remember]. Not sure that soaps cater for non sensational storylines any more. Maybe Brookside did carry on but as series like The Street?

numberplease Thu 22-Nov-12 21:19:55
Isthis, I don`t have any explanation as to why Brookside ended, all I can say is I wish it hadn`t. I never missed a single episode from start to finish. Got a shock seeing Dean Sullivan (Jimmy Corkhill) on TV the other week, if they hadn`t said who he was I wouldn`t have recognized him! And Ray Quinn was adorable as little Anthony Murray.