Brookside,
produced independently by Mersey Television, is inextricably linked
to the history of the British independent publishing channel, Channel
Four. Founded in 1982, Channel Four's remit was to attract audiences
not already catered for by other channels, and to innovate in form
and style. In particular, Brookside attracted a young audience
who were essential to its success.
Unlike earlier
serial dramas, Brookside avoids the traditional drama television
studio, with the show filmed on a small housing estate built as
part of a Liverpool housing redevelopment. The structure of the
close itself, with small "two up, two down" working-class accommodation
next to large detached houses for wealthier occupants, set the stage
for confrontation between classes, with politically contentious
issues dealt with in an upfront manner.
Whereas its
competitor soaps are perceived to be "character-based," Brookside's
initial aim was a realism that directly tackled the social and political
problems apparent in the Britain of the 1980s. This approach has
been followed by the BBC's Eastenders, which also copied
Brookside's "weekend omnibus repeat" format. More recently the
pressing concerns of audience maximisation have led to a more sensationalist
approach to social issues, with British television's first "on-screen"
lesbian kiss, and a recent storyline focusing on an incestuous affair
between brother and sister. These developments have led to suggestions
that Brookside, in particular its Saturday omnibus edition, is unsuitable
for "family audiences".
One crucial
difference between the Brookside of the 1980s and other British
soaps was the lack of a central community meeting point such as
a public house or corner shop, forcing characters to interact either
on the close itself, or in scenes shot on location in and around
Liverpool. However, the addition of a shopping development to the
set, has led to more traditional interactions over the counter of
a Pizza Parlour, and at the bar of Brookside's nightclub, La Luz.
Many of the
main changes in Brookside are symbolised by the fate of the
Grant family. Moving onto the close at the start of the programme,
the Grants symbolised the expansion in working-class property ownership
encouraged by the Conservative governments of the 1980s. Bobby Grant,
a trade unionist with a fierce line in socialist rhetoric, suffered
unemployment, Damon Grant was murdered in London (with the death
filmed as part of a Brookside spin-off entitled Damon
and Debbie, a format copied by Granada's Coronation Street),
Karen Grant left home to study at University, and Sheila Grant left
Bobby, symbolising the breakdown of the traditional post-World War
II family unit. Barry Grant gradually developed the role of a ruthlessly
competitive young entrepreneur, encouraged by the boom-bust cycle
of the British economy during the 1980s and 1990s. He continued
with the series into the 1990s, but gradually disappeared after
murdering the wife and child of his lifelong best mate, Terry Sullivan.
Murder and violence are no strangers to the Brookside set,
which since its inception has seen two armed sieges, the murder
of a child abusing father, a violent rape, and a fatal cocaine-fueled
car accident.
Channel Four
now broadcasts three episodes a week of the soap, and Brookside
is invariably the channel's most popular programme, giving it a
greater scope for minority-oriented programming elsewhere in the
schedule. Still shot film-style, with one camera, the contemporary
Brookside retains many of the formal qualities of its 1980s
twice-weekly version. However, gritty social realism has gradually
given way to a more populist approach; whereas early episodes did
their best to reflect the specific concerns of the northwest of
England, nowadays Brookside rarely references its Liverpudlian
roots.
-Stuart
Borthwick
Brown,
Mary Ellen. Soap Opera and Women's Talk: The Pleasure of Resistance.
Thousand Oaks, California: Sage, 1994.
Geraghty,
Christine. Women and Soap Opera: A Study of Prime Time Soaps.
Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991.
Kilbourn,
R.W. Television Soaps. London: Batsford, 1992.
