Brookside Brookside

[Mel O'Drama]

Episodes 9 - 18
30 November - 29 December 1982​

I’ve been watching at something like ten times the original pace, but it’s working fine. I’d say this is a testament to the character-driven nature. There’s the occasional dramatic peak - this run of episodes has included the stabbing of Barry Grant, the death of Bobby’s friend and the entire residential close being burgled - it’s the small stuff that really drives things: Karen not wanting to go to midnight mass. Paul’s fears that Sheila may want to get an identical house sign to his. Roger’s irritation with Gavin’s eyesore of a shed. Even Damon’s VHF (very heavy fart).

At the moment, it doesn’t matter whether I watch one episode or four episodes of an evening. It satisfies either way.

Yikes! While fending off overtures from Roger’s colleague, Heather mentioned that she only met Roger a couple of years ago. It must have been a very short honeymoon period indeed since they’re now like a bitter old couple.

The last 1982 episode featured the Grants’ New Year’s Eve party. On paper it’s an exciting concept because it's the first time almost the entire extended cast has assembled (only Gavin and Petra were absent, but everyone else right down to Ducksie, Gizzmo and Matty attended). It is exciting in its own way, but because it’s also organic there was something almost low key about it. There was nothing that felt shoehorned or forced, and with half the people being there out of social propriety rather than genuinely wanting to be there was an enjoyably awkward energy.

Of course, this is the first time everyone’s been together, and it’s endlessly fascinating to see the interactions on this level. There are factions and cliques, but with most making a bit of an effort, so it feels very truthful. It also felt like one of the more accurate representations of this kind of get-together. You’ve got the laddy types having a banter-ish laugh (probably a slightly nasty one at the expense of the posh neighbours). Roger and Annabelle’s more highbrow discussion putting the world to rights. Then you have the schoolboys mucking about and fantasising about Heather while complaining they’re not drinking anything stronger than coke. And Paul trying to friendship match Lucy and Karen.

I think what made it stand apart from many other soapy get togethers is that there’s no real agenda. It’s not building to anything, nor is there an undercurrent relating to anything other than the neighbours working out how to interact with (and in some cases simply tolerate) one another.

It’s neither overly polished nor smaltzy and gushing, though it does have a warmth. Much of it feels ad hoc and improvised (for both characters and actors). Even Bobby and Matty’s musical number fitted in well. I had no idea Ricky Tomlinson could play the banjo.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Episodes 19 - 24
04 - 19 January 1983​

The Collins children are proving more watchable than I’d expected.

Lucy most definitely has a mind of her own, a stubborn will and a resentment about the situation she now finds herself in both at home and school. Her rebelliousness is really kicking in now, with her dating a Hooray Henry from her old stomping ground, and it’s great fun to watch. I particularly loved the scene where Annabelle appeared to have persuaded Paul to simply leave Lucy alone to reap what she’s sowing. Seconds later, he overhears the tail end of a conversation between Lucy and Gordon, misunderstands and goes charging from the kitchen to the living room to confront her. Anything that gets Paul’s blood pressure up is a winner with me. Lucy’s far more spiky and forthright than I remembered, and there’s something of a young Rosalyn Landor to Katrin Cartlidge. It’s made me interested to see more of her work, and I see there are some Mike Leigh films among them which has intrigued me all the more.

Gordon speaks very little but says an awful lot with just a look. Something about him feels rather Australian to me. He has the softly spoken voice of the original Scott Robinson, while the red-headed, introverted younger son and his interest in computers makes him an amalgam of the two O’Brien kids (though mercifully without the whining, shrieking or mumbling). I find his geeky side completely endearing, and it’s interesting to have a school-aged kid who isn’t causing trouble or rebelling but simply going about his business. Damon, Ducksie and Gizzmo flicking food at him and laughing during the New Year’s Eve party while Gordon simply took it spoke volumes. While I remember the recast (and arguably retconned) mid-to-late-Eighties Gordon better, I find myself more interested to see what OG Gordon’s stint in the series brings him.

The Grants just get better and better. Latest developments have seen Sheila confront a colleague and friend who is pilfering from the till to survive, and her fury at Damon for saying he doesn’t want to go to morning service anymore (pipping poor Karen to the post since she’s been working up to this for ages). Most fun was Sheila’s retaliation for Damon returning the anorak he had as his sole Christmas present and exchanging it for records: she and Karen chose him an even uglier yellow anorak from the market and his penance is to wear it. Possibly forever. It’s delightfully executed, and I know I’ll give a little smile a whenever I see him wear it.

The Huntingtons’ concern over Gavin’s gaudy workshop wonderfully demonstrated the lack of community spirit present in its ITV counterparts. As well as increasing the friction between the next-door neighbours, the Huntingtons’ attempts to drum up trade by knocking doors with a self-created petition fell on deaf ears. At the Collinses, only Lucy was present and she said she liked the ugly shed, which was characteristically perverse. At the Grants, Sheila was even blunter saying it’s none of her family’s business because they can’t see it, before closing the door in their faces.

What I particularly loved about this sequence was the way the episode was structured so that we can understand why those in the households are none too receptive to Heather and Roger’s concerns. Lucy’s brooding over her choice not to visit her grandmother in the Lake District (since it’s Annabelle’s mother I assume this is Mona who would later feature more), while the Grants have the usual chaos going on. Meanwhile, Gavin was even less approachable than usual during the Huntington's initial visit to try and air their concerns because he was processing the news about his low sperm count and was pretty much under doctor’s orders to have sex that evening because Petra was ovulating. This added further meaning to his bitter quip that Roger “doesn’t like my erection”.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Episodes 25 - 30
25 January - 9 February 1983​

With me having forgotten about Gavin’s sudden death, it’s disappointing that it was telegraphed ahead of time when I glanced over the summary for Episode 28 a few days before watching. Not for the first time, it’s a reminder to me that I shouldn’t do this, but I also realised that I couldn’t have avoided it anyhow. With the episode being the first one I watched last night, and the STV app never emembering where I left off, I always have to scroll though to the episode anyway, and there’s no way to click on it without seeing the summary.

No matter, the way it was done was incredibly effective. It was simultaneously naturalistic and visceral and for my money is one of the more realistic-feeling screen deaths. Even plot-spoilt as I was, it felt quite startling because of it suddenness.

Gavin’s body being on-screen for so long added to the grim reality of the situation. The scene, for example, when Roger went back into the bedroom alone to retrieve Petra’s address book, gave me a great sense of unease because there’s that part of me that could buy into the idea of it being a practical joke, with Gavin springing up to scare his adversary. And I suppose that’s how it genuinely feels to be around a dead body. Culturally, we’re just not used to it, so I suppose the episode in some way began to challenge Brits’ sometimes unhealthy attitude towards mortality.

I find Petra an endearing character. There’s something very vulnerable about her a lot of the time and it’s easy to see why characters want to care for her. I’m less sure about Alexandra Pigg’s dramatic range when it comes to the bigger stuff in this episode (there was a lot of sniffing à la Crossroads’ Iris). I’ve been surprised to see that she would later win a BAFTA for Letter To Brezhnev, making me think that either I’m underestimating her or she is about to grow legs. Either way, it’s put that film back on my radar.

The immediate aftermath of Gavin’s death saw the arrival of (Free) George Jackson. Marie has also appeared in the credits, though hasn’t had a scene yet, apart from a long shot of her helping Petra into Gav’s 3-Series (I think it was Marie, though I initially thought it was Heather, so who knows).

Once again, the neighbours’ often uncomfortable responses to the interactions Gav’s death has necessitated have been enjoyable. Heather encapsulated this wonderfully, with Roger bringing Petra for her for support, and Heather whispering that she doesn’t know what to say and then jumping on the first opportunity to leave the house. It’s such a refreshing change from the soap matriarch who always knows just how to fix a situation or person. And as Petra told Barry, she was glad Heather had gone because she’s “not like us” and doesn’t get them.

I’m not sure how I feel about the chemistry between Barry and Petra. It certainly seems in character for him to feel OK about physically comforting a woman whose husband is still in bed next door (recent episodes have seen him shagging the wife of his football team’s manager), but it all feels indecently quick. But then the Close is a hotbed of dysfunction, so perhaps it’s organic enough.

Roger and Barry being the first two neighbours Petra stumbled into after finding Gavin dead has seen a detente between the two men, with Barry going as far as to tell Future Frank Rogers that Roger is all right.

Meanwhile, the Collinses didn’t send flowers to Petra because they couldn’t afford them (I hope they at least managed a card). Their forgetting about Gavin’s funeral until Annabelle, with horror, found herself following the funeral cortege also felt enjoyably at odds with your typical soap community where all the homes are well-represented at the funeral and wake (while the service was offscreen, Barry appeared to be the only regular present at the wake).

There’s been some great stuff with the Collinses recently. Paul’s increasing depression and Annabelle’s annoyance at his unreliability and perceived laziness around the house brought things to a head with her storming out of the house after calling him useless. This gave us perhaps the series’ longest two-handed scene to date, when Paul caught up with Annabelle at a church and they talked it out.

What’s more, the renewed understanding between them led to a topless post-coital scene with Annabelle’s head on Paul’s stomach which - by virtue of featuring two middle-aged, middle class people - felt somehow more risqué than it would have with photogenic youths in the same setup.

Lucy’s getting political at school, and is fiercely debating with future Kathy from Emmerdale (here billed as “Melinda” Burrows).

The Grants haven’t exactly been doing nothing, either. In between supporting Petra and sleeping with a married woman, Barry’s apparently done Demon Duane over and thrown him down the steps of his block of flats, leaving him unable to ride his motorbike for a while.

Damon’s received another great clout from Bobby for something or other (I think it was bunking off school, but Damon’s been up to all sorts, so I forget). And Sheila’s again confronted Karen about taking the pill.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Episodes 31 - 52
15 February - 27 April 1983​

The series is a bit hit and miss with me at the moment. Fortunately, it’s more hits than misses, but it doesn’t feel as surefire in terms of quality as it did a short while ago. Rather than storylines, this mostly depends on the character combinations. Barry trying to persuade Karen to come out of the locked bathroom is a winner. Roger visiting Petra and Michelle with paperwork is very watchable. But Barry and Petra walking through a park made me glaze over.

Alan Partridge is a character I don’t remember at all (I had it in my head that he was someone Damon knew through school), and I’m really struggling to get any kind of connection with him. It feels as though eccentricity is his “thing”, but at the same time it feels like eccentricity for eccentricity’s sake and it simply doesn’t interest me. The actress playing Sam delivers all her lines with a complete lack of conviction or enthusiasm*, and it’s difficult to fault her for this, because there’s no saying just who she is meant to be. She does have a rather lovely Mini Mayfair, though.

For all the unconventionality he projects, Alan Partridge is in many ways the most conventional soap character owing to the way he keeps wandering into his neighbours’ homes. To the series’ credit, this is at least shown as a minor irritant to householders. The “open house” soap convention feels a bit more of a thing in general as the episodes go along, with Annabelle’s Brookside Ratepayers’ Association (nobody has yet commented on the BRA acronym) and the visit of Roger’s Catholic parents establishing logical reasons for the increased interaction, in addition to the ongoing ripples from Gavin’s death.

The send-off party the Huntingtons held for Roger’s parents including pretty much the whole cast came about equally logically, with it initially being an invitation for Bobby and Sheila, which was reluctantly extended when characters from other households were unexpectedly present as the invitation was made. All the characters barring its two most strait-laced upping sticks mid-party and moving from the Huntingtons to the Grants felt enjoyably petty and point-scoring, cementing the Grants as the alpha householders while sticking it to the characters who are most “othered” by most characters at this point. Frankly, though, I immensely enjoyed watching Paul and Roger’s awkward exchange about nibbles and whatnot after everyone else had rudely bailed, and wouldn't have minded spending far more time with them.

There have been a number of themed episodes that feel as though they’ve taken place either in real time (or at least over the course of a short period of time) or in one location. Or both. The smoky lock-in episode was a great example of this, taking place in a working men’s club with Bobby and his colleagues after several of them have worked their last shift before redundancy-forced unemployment.

Reflecting this was a later episode where a slightly tipsy Sheila and Bobby lark about playing pool and reminiscing about their younger days while walking home after a night of dancing. This contrasted perfectly with the Grant children at home discussing not wanting to go to church anymore. The two came together perfectly for a mega blow-up when Bobby and Sheila arrived home and things came to a head. It felt all the more meaningful and powerful because we had spent the evening with all the characters and knew the frame of mind they were in. Sheila and Bobby had broken a cardinal soap rule: they were in a happy and contented place. And even though they had to pay the price, it left me feeling bittersweet that it had to happen this quickly. Needless to say, there were terrific performances all round.

Brookie is really about the small stuff. The last episode I watched contrasted Bobby accompanying Jonah to court in a bid to keep access to his son with Paul and Gordon discussing whether or not Paul should trade in the Rover SD1 for a smaller, more economical car. I found the latter far more compelling. While it’s nice to see Jonah’s character expanded a little, it all felt like too much, too soon. A couple of episodes ago he was a tertiary character who butted heads with Bobby occasionally over union business. Now he’s screaming at the ex we’ve never met before over a child we’ve never seen. No matter how good the writing and performances, these heightened dramatics are just not going to land with me the same way when the character is a non-resident we’ve only really seen filtered though the eyes of a key player.

Back on the subject of contrasting, it’s notable that a line about things “not being black and white” cut immediately to Jonah in court, where he had earlier been complaining to Bobby that there’s a layer of racism behind his white ex-wife’s white new lover wanting to edge him out of the picture. Something this arc has brought home for me is that there’s actually very little racial diversity in Brookie at the moment. Part of me wondered if this is an inaccurate portrayal of Eighties Liverpool, but I’ve decided that this middle class cul-de-sac being inhabited exclusively by white faces is quite possibly one of Phil Redmond’s most subtle political statements. In many ways, Jonah has to be an outsider for this statement to have any truth.

And in the same episode, it falls to Paul Collins to be the voice of casual racism when he tut-tuts from behind his net curtains about Bobby’s “ethnic” “coloured” friend. Annabelle is the voice of diplomacy. In an earlier episode her response to his complaint that Jonah wore an earring was to point out that sometimes she wore two. Here she points out that Jonah is more a true Scouser than either of them. While he agrees, this only prompts him to wax lyrical about the “Liverpool darkies” in his unit during his service. One has to admire Annabelle for trying, though.






* Brookie has a number of characters who have that inflection-less Ringo Starr delivery which might have as much to do with the regional dialect as it does actors’ inexperience. Petra aside, it’s mostly supporting players such as Sam, Jonah, Ducksie and my personal favourite Gizzmo. Gizzmo’s delivery makes him sound endearingly wooden, but it fits the character perfectly and I wouldn’t have him any other way.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Hmmm - while Episodes 31-130 still say they're available until 31 January 2023 on STV Player, I've just noticed that Episodes 1-30 say they're available until 31 July 2026!

I wonder if in time they'll make all episodes available for a significantly longer period. It would certainly be good news for those who aren't in a hurry to watch.

 

[Ome]

I’ve been meaning to pop in here with an update on where I am, though never in any kind of detail that Mel is doing. So for the sake of not wanting to drop any possible spoilers I will react to Mel’s posting as he continues to chase me in the episode count.

I will say that I reached

Spoiler

my all time favourite episode (so far) from January’84 with Sheila and Marie.

Which I watched 3 times already.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

I’ve been meaning to pop in here with an update on where I am

Oh great. I've really enjoyed catching up on your comments on earlier episodes.

So for the sake of not wanting to drop any possible spoilers I will react to Mel’s posting as he continues to chase me in the episode count.

That's great, but please don't hold back on account of me. The same goes for @James from London who I think is somewhere in the 300s.

I have seen pretty much the entire series at least once before so I'm not at all worried about spoilers. Anything I read on future episodes will just serve as a tantalising little teaser.

I will say that I reached

Funny you should say this, because I've just this afternoon watched an episode which featured the very first scene between these two. It was a cracker and showed so much potential for friction. Now I'm looking forward to seeing what lies ahead with your favourite episode so far.

 

[James from London]

I had no idea Ricky Tomlinson could play the banjo.

Oh yeah, it's definitely his party piece. I think he got it into The Royle Family as well.

Lucy’s far more spiky and forthright than I remembered, and there’s something of a young Rosalyn Landor to Katrin Cartlidge. It’s made me interested to see more of her work, and I see there are some Mike Leigh films among them which has intrigued me all the more.

Lucy's probably as highly strung and wrong-headed and impulsive as any other soap teen, but there's a fierce intelligence behind everything she does that makes her totally credible -- a brilliant combination of writing and acting. Off the top of my head, Katrin Cartlidge probably had the most intriguing post-soap career of any actor in the UK I can think of: Mike Leigh's Naked and Career Girls, Lars Von Trier's Breaking the Waves, a bunch of European art house films and a random one-off episode of Enders as a copper during the Who Killed Eddie Royle? era, to name but a few.

Gordon speaks very little but says an awful lot with just a look. Something about him feels rather Australian to me. He has the softly spoken voice of the original Scott Robinson, while the red-headed, introverted younger son and his interest in computers makes him an amalgam of the two O’Brien kids (though mercifully without the whining, shrieking or mumbling). I find his geeky side completely endearing, and it’s interesting to have a school-aged kid who isn’t causing trouble or rebelling but simply going about his business. Damon, Ducksie and Gizzmo flicking food at him and laughing during the New Year’s Eve party while Gordon simply took it spoke volumes. While I remember the recast (and arguably retconned) mid-to-late-Eighties Gordon better, I find myself more interested to see what OG Gordon’s stint in the series brings him.

I love the first Gordon. Only 80s Brookside would bother to treat such a shy, quiet, non-dynamic freckly geeky kid as an equal to anyone else on the close. Any other soap would make him a caricature but the series never laughs at him, even if the other characters do (and I did occasionally, especially in his classic "Can I have a pint of bitter beer?" scene). I'm not sure whether you'll have reached it yet, Mel, but I love the fact that almost an entire half an episode is taken up by a sequence where Paul is driving Gordon home from school and gently asking him questions about ... well, nothing at all really in terms of plot, but everything in terms of character.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Oh yeah, it's definitely his party piece. I think he got it into The Royle Family as well.

I was really impressed they managed to squeeze it in. I also like that it was established so early in the series so it wasn't like one of those out-of-character moments that makes the audience wonder where this never-before-talent suddenly came from.

Lucy's probably as highly strung and wrong-headed and impulsive as any other soap teen, but there's a fierce intelligence behind everything she does that makes her totally credible -- a brilliant combination of writing and acting.

She's great. This evening I've watched her attending a CND rally and confessing that she's not sure if she's there because she believes in the cause or just to get out of the house. Followed by the simplicity of her singing happy birthday to Annabelle. Both were lovely moments.

Off the top of my head, Katrin Cartlidge probably had the most intriguing post-soap career of any actor in the UK I can think of: Mike Leigh's Naked and Career Girls, Lars Von Trier's Breaking the Waves, a bunch of European art house films and a random one-off episode of Enders as a copper during the Who Killed Eddie Royle? era, to name but a few.

I'd definitely be interested in seeing her in other stuff, so I'm making mental post-its.

Any other soap would make him a caricature but the series never laughs at him, even if the other characters do (and I did occasionally, especially in his classic "Can I have a pint of bitter beer?" scene).

Spookily enough... another scene I've watched just this evening.

I'm not sure whether you'll have reached it yet, Mel, but I love the fact that almost an entire half an episode is taken up by a sequence where Paul is driving Gordon home from school and gently asking him questions about ... well, nothing at all really in terms of plot, but everything in terms of character.

Ooh - that doesn't sound familiar, so I think I have that still to look forward to.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Episodes 53 - 63
3 May - 7 June 1983​

Not only has Michelle persuaded Petra and Barry to knock down a wall in favour of an arch, Marie asks if they’re going to artex it. Meanwhile, the Collinses are getting excited over the Austin Maestro and Alan is trading in his Mk IV Cortina for an XR3. It’s most definitely 1983.

The Collinses downsizing the SD1 for the Maestro has been quite the saga, and I’ve loved every minute. Paul initially had to be persuaded to downsize in the first place, but Annabelle was determined and we accompanied them to a BL dealership where Annabelle immediately chose the Maestro. The arc has felt at times like an informercial and made me wonder if there was some sort of sponsorship going on. We’ve seen them looking over a brochure from the comfort of their living room, marvelling at the economy and features. “And it’s British!”, Paul reminded Annabelle (and us). Even Alan Partridge commented that he liked the Maestro, though he was less interested upon learning that the Collinses would be receiving a basic model without the electronic dashboard and voice commands. “Who wants a bossy lady giving them orders?”, quipped Annabelle, pre-empting my feelings on Siri by several decades. The line took on a different irony when Marie later observed that Annabelle thought she was Mrs Thatcher.

Marie’s been terrific in every scene so far. There’s certainly no love lost between her and Barry, and she was very quick to pay a visit to Sheila to try and “fix” the Barry/Petra situation by telling Sheila about Marie’s childhood abortion, knowing that the Grants were Catholics. It was disguised as concern, but it’s one of the more deliberately brutal things I’ve seen on this series, and it was wonderful to see Sheila bristle defensively and meet Marie’s aspersions with directness. In a later rant to Bobby over the Barry/Petra affair, Sheila referred to Marie as “Mighty Mouth… the voice of the nation”.

The more the Barry/Petra situation plays out, the more blurred Petra’s morals appear. There’s a lot of victimhood in there, but looking back on it she was asking Barry to put his arms round her back on the morning of Gavin’s death, while Gavin was still lying in her bed, and she’s continued to send signals like crazy since then. It’s an extremely twisted, messed up situation, and the more I see of Petra, Marie and Michelle the more I feel there’s a whole lot to unpack.

I do still find myself wondering just what Alan and Sam are doing there. They’re fine when interacting with other characters, but whenever we’re alone with them in the bungalow it feels wrong.

As I leave this run of episodes, Brookie is doing what I believe is its first location shoot outside of Liverpool. And technically outside of the UK since we’ve ventured to the Isle Of Man. There’s a great deal of soapy contrivance with Barry and Petra not only going at the same time as Alan and Sam but being on the same ferry and boarding at the same hotel. Consequently they spend the entire time trying to hide from them… until they can’t any more. So far, so meh. It does look gloriously grey and foreboding, though. Again, perhaps a 1983 thing.

Meanwhile, Lucy’s attended her CND rally with Margi Clark who laughed off any idea of Lucy being a fraud for being uncertain about her motive for supporting the cause. And poor Roger has been knocked down by a minibus after yet another row with Heather. I do love how hapless Roger is: burgled twice; Christmas shopping stolen from his car; the laughing stock of the Close; and now this. And Heather is fuming about the timing clashing with her exams and being stuck with Roger’s parents.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Episodes 64 - 75
8 June - 19 July 1983​

With everything the writers keep putting Petra through, I feel bad saying that I find her misery indulgent sometimes. This, I think, has more to do with her dependence on other people which - while fully understandable - occasionally steps into her coming across as unappreciative. In the last few episodes, Michelle, Barry and Terry have gone out of their way to offer practical help, and it somehow feels that it’s not enough. When Barry - having installed the arch and breakfast bar - drew the line at putting up wallpaper (interior decorating being too “poofy” for him), Petra went into an entitled whine. Then she slouched in a chair sulking while Michelle struggled on with it. But she was up and about again when Terry was there, making a display of decorating badly in order to solicit his offer of help.

There’s an element of having her cake and eating it: on the one hand a loud profession of fierce independence; on the other, not-so-subtle manipulations to gain sympathy and practical help. And it gives mixed messages. When Barry tells Petra to grow up (in a scene that gives us what I believe is Brookie’s first flashback - to the night of her final row with Gavin) when she almost smashes the glass door again, it’s extremely harsh. But his point of view is still easy to understand.

Of course, this is what makes Petra so fascinating. There’s a lot that’s unsaid, and a lot going on underneath tied in with the complexities of grief, guilt and who knows what else. Was her momentary belief that she’d seen Gavin at the car showroom a reflection of the searching cycle of grief or a cry for help to ensure Barry would know she was too vulnerable for him to leave her (which they both knew was about to happen)? Perhaps it was both. And then some.

Her public breakdowns have been the cause of some interesting scenes, such as the impromptu garden party at the Collinses when Heather and Lucy were concerned about Petra’s behaviour in the street and coaxed her in for some lemonade. I don’t believe we’ve seen these three share a scene like this before (well, four, if we’re including Gordon’s contributions) and it struck a really nice balance between almost cosy, community-based soap and cautious politeness. The latter was quickly broken down by it being these particular three players, all of whom tend to be up-front and mostly unpretentious in their communications. Heather will tell anyone who will listen how inattentive Roger is being. Lucy makes no secret of her parents’ disapproval of her choices (she’s recently been arrested after going all Just Stop Oil at a CND rally, and Paul is sphincter-lipped over her friendship with older black divorcee Jonah). And Petra is at her most chatty. Ground covered includes gender roles and sexual harassment. But it all ends in neighbourly politeness as Heather departs to go shopping for fabric in order to make cushion covers and the status quo is almost resumed.

The Heather/Roger situation is giving us the series’ first soapy affair. Again, though, the picture is painted in shades of grey. At times, both are pretty unlikeable. Heather is frequently an unsympathetic partner. Roger is evidently using this to justify his infidelity. His reaction is extreme and uncalled for, but I’m appreciative that he is not 100% the bad guy and that I know Heather will feel even more justified in her anger if and when it comes to light. It feels as though it’s all happened pretty quickly, but there’s still something organic and perhaps even inevitable given their soapy dysfunction which has been present since day one.

Over at the Grants, things have been electric. With more factory trouble and Bobby once again looking at the prospect of losing his job, there’s a lot of anger in the air and it’s coming out in the family dynamics. There’s a terrific scene where Bobby comes home to lunch unexpectedly and is disgusted to find Barry lying on the sofa. After some words, Barry is defiant and criticises Bobby for not being able to provide the family with financial security despite working for so many years. Sheila then reads Barry the riot act, telling him that no matter what material possessions Barry will have accrued by the time he’s Bobby’s age, it’s doubtful that he’d have a wife who respected him the way Sheila does Bobby. At different points, both Bobby and Sheila both speak to one another about Barry (both saying they’re sick of the bone idle layabout, or words to that effect) within his earshot but as though he’s not there. It feels dismissive and very truthful. There’s something about the Grant family being at odds that feels far more brutal and ugly than when it happens anywhere else, because the connections feel as though they run deep. I strongly suspect the method acting philosophy from those playing the Grants has a bearing on the impact of these scenes.

Thankfully, it hasn’t been all bad news at the Grants. There’s been a semi-comic sequence with Sheila crashing Bobby’s Princess while attempting to teach herself to drive. And there was a corker of a little moment when Bobby and Sheila had a conversation through the window Sheila was furiously cleaning (he was inside. She was standing outside with the window open). As Bobby left the house, both stood outside with the window between them, and shared a cartoony smooch through the pane of glass. You had to be there, but it was a really cute and funny moment.

There’s a definite fabric theme going on at the moment. As well as Petra’s wallpaper and Heather’s cushion covers, Sheila has just ordered new covers for the family’s worn three-piece suite (despite Bobby’s claim that the suite is “brand new”, we learn that they’ve just finished paying it off). And Karen is intent on setting up business with her friends making clothes out of old bedsheets.

There have been some fun scenes with Karen and/or her friends yakking away, either sunbathing on the muddy grass in front of the Grants (the lack of turf or muddy turf is very present, reinforcing the less glamorous side of new build developments like this) or on the bus or walking round Liverpool city centre. My favourite to date was when the three of them were in a small shop, looking extremely dodgy while gathered round rifling through dresses to sketch and whispering about friends who’d got done for shoplifting. It was all so ordinary. Likewise, I’ve caught up with that Paul/Gordon exchange @James from London mentioned where they gave the new Maestro its inaugural spin and chatted about Gordon being afraid of Heather for being too pretty and other randomness such as whether they will turn left or right at their junction. In retrospect I can’t help wondering if there’s some very early foreshadowing and symbolism present here.

Gordon’s self-expression at the moment is coming out in his fashion, with Annabelle and Paul horrified at the coat he bought for £28 at a secondhand shop. Frankly, I’m with them. It looks about four sizes too big for him. But it’s all worth it for the sight of the family collapsing into giggles over the idea of Paul wearing such a garment.

Gordon and Lucy have also manifested an affair between Annabelle and a colleague from the Residents’ Association in whom she shows a great deal of interest. This gave them some nice giggly scenes, and Lucy the opportunity to make lots of snide comments. Annabelle eventually grew weary and, with dinner on the table, asked Lucy to wash her hands and sit down. “Spoken just like Lady Macbeth”, was Lucy’s final quip on the subject.

 

[James from London]

Once again, the neighbours’ often uncomfortable responses to the interactions Gav’s death has necessitated have been enjoyable. Heather encapsulated this wonderfully, with Roger bringing Petra for her for support, and Heather whispering that she doesn’t know what to say and then jumping on the first opportunity to leave the house. It’s such a refreshing change from the soap matriarch who always knows just how to fix a situation or person. And as Petra told Barry, she was glad Heather had gone because she’s “not like us” and doesn’t get them.

There are strong parallels between the first real tragedies on Brookside and Enders: the shockingly sudden deaths of Gavin, and Ali and Sue's baby Hassan. Both Petra and the Osmans wake up to find their loved ones dead in the same room; both then bang frantically on the door of the neighbourhood's yuppie couple with whom they have zilch in common socially (Roger and Heather / Andy and Debs). Despite their somewhat buffoonish personas, Roger and Andy each prove to be efficiently capable when faced with this crisis, thanks to their professional training as a lawyer and nurse respectively, whereas their smugly professional other halves, Heather the accountant and Debs the banker, are completely out of their depth. Oblivious to their discomfort, a traumatised Petra and Sue both proceed to outstay their welcome in their neighbours' houses which leads to yet more social awkwardness. But whereas thus dynamic on Enders kind of gets absorbed into that community's never-ending chaotic hubbub, things are never quite the same between Petra and the Huntingtons: having shared this tragic morning, they can't ever go back to behaving like neighbours who don't really know each other. There may be no Queen Vic at the bottom of the road for them to hang out together in, but an unspoken barrier has been broken, however unintentionally or reluctantly. Same goes tenfold for Petra and Barry: something's happened between them that they hadn't predicted, aren't equipped for and now can't extricate themselves from.

@James from London who I think is somewhere in the 300s.

Ooh well remembered! I got up to about 350 before deciding to pause and wait for STV to catch up with me so I can watch it in relatively Sharp-O-Vision rather than through a tea towel.

I do still find myself wondering just what Alan and Sam are doing there. They’re fine when interacting with other characters, but whenever we’re alone with them in the bungalow it feels wrong.

Purely in hindsight, Alan feels like the human equivalent of the post box that appeared in the close a couple of years later (apparently, you'd never have a post box in a cul-de-sac in real life), i.e., as a contrivance to create more interaction between the households. Alan is the first Brookside regular with no sense of boundaries. In Corrie or early Enders, he'd be less of an eccentric than a conventional character who thinks nothing of walking uninvited into his neighbours' houses and expecting to be best mates with all of them. I never really questioned Alan's presence: I trusted the show enough to believe in him and his lifestyle contrasted sufficiently with everyone else's that it all made sense really. (In a way, he and Sam are another candidate for the Kenny and Ginger of Brookside: the most contemporary, modern couple -- and nothing dates quicker than modernity).

Looking back, it's clear that Alan is the first in a succession of larger than life/comedic characters it's easy to imagine popping up in Coronation Street. Harry and Edna notwithstanding, they usually take the guise of relatives of the main characters: Petra's gobby sister, Terry's work shy dad, Doreen's gossipy mother, as well as Alan's own wonderfully nutty mum. I guess Roger's mum and dad slightly predate this trend. (I bloody love Roger's mum and dad.) They break the social boundaries of the close but in a way that feels real: Roger's dad befriends the Grants partly because he knows it'll wind his uptight son up, and it's kind of easier to be everybody's pal when you can bugger off back to your own home in a couple of days.

As for Sam, Dinah May is nobody's idea of a great actress, least of all, I suspect, her own. (She was a former Miss UK and went on to be Michael Winner's PA.) There's nothing pretentious about her. This may be pure projection on my part, but I get the feeling the rest of the cast (the "proper" actors) really like her, especially the Grants.

As I leave this run of episodes, Brookie is doing what I believe is its first location shoot outside of Liverpool. And technically outside of the UK since we’ve ventured to the Isle Of Man. There’s a great deal of soapy contrivance with Barry and Petra not only going at the same time as Alan and Sam but being on the same ferry and boarding at the same hotel.

It's like Den and Angie going to Venice and running into Den's mistress. In soap, There is No Escape.

the more I see of Petra, Marie and Michelle the more I feel there’s a whole lot to unpack.

Yes, the relationships are so rich. They don't even have to say that much: you just unquestioningly believe in the three of them as sisters. Same with the Grants -- there's a palpable sense of family history without us needing to be fed acres of superfluous back story. (And I love back story in a soap, so this is another way in which 80s Brookside flies in the face of soapy convention.)

 

[Mel O'Drama]

There are strong parallels between the first real tragedies on Brookside and Enders: the shockingly sudden deaths of Gavin, and Ali and Sue's baby Hassan.

Oh wow. As the series' first sudden deaths, a few months into their respective runs, that connection had crossed my mind. But that was as far as I got. The parallels between the Huntingtons and Debs and Andy, their responses and social differences hadn't registered with me until you pointed it out.

But whereas thus dynamic on Enders kind of gets absorbed into that community's never-ending chaotic hubbub, things are never quite the same between Petra and the Huntingtons: having shared this tragic morning, they can't ever go back to behaving like neighbours who don't really know each other.

Absolutely. During the scene I've watched this week with Heather, Petra and Lucy, something else that hadn't consciously registered with me was the history between Heather and Petra relating to Gavin's death. All things considered, it's all the more meaningful that it was Heather who realised Petra was distressed and reached out to offer support for her. The relative ease with which they spoke showed some definite growth.

Which reminds me, this week I've also watched a scene between Paul and Roger which took place over the fences of their rear gardens (well, side garden in Paul's case, since the direction has finally allowed me the Collinses' garden is L-shaped and goes around the side of their house right up to the Huntingtons'). It was a fairly ordinary scene, with Paul asking for his wheelbarrow back while Roger was using it to turf his garden, but it took me back to that very early scene of Roger rifling through the ashes of the newspapers Gordon had burnt and approvingly discovering the Collinses took The Guardian. Things are still far from cosy between them, but there has been a certain kind of progress since the days of Roger fearing Paul and Annabelle were old acquaintances of the Grants.

I got up to about 350 before deciding to pause and wait for STV to catch up with me so I can watch it in relatively Sharp-O-Vision rather than through a tea towel.

That sounds like a good plan, and I admire your restraint. I'm glad you said "relatively" sharp, because at first I was shocked how grainy the picture was. It's certainly far from gloriously remastered, but now I've got used to it it's fine. Hopefully it will be quite an improvement on the episodes you've been watching.

Purely in hindsight, Alan feels like the human equivalent of the post box that appeared in the close a couple of years later

I wondered where you were going with that, but what a perfect analogy.

In Corrie or early Enders, he'd be less of an eccentric than a conventional character who thinks nothing of walking uninvited into his neighbours' houses and expecting to be best mates with all of them.

Yes. I suppose I felt that soap conventionality somehow diluted the original recipe, and perhaps it was a bit early in the day to head in that direction. Part of me still feels that way, but there's no denying that he serves a function in keeping links between the households.

I trusted the show enough to believe in him and his lifestyle contrasted sufficiently with everyone else's that it all made sense really. (In a way, he and Sam are another candidate for the Kenny and Ginger of Brookside: the most contemporary, modern couple -- and nothing dates quicker than modernity).

As for Sam, Dinah May is nobody's idea of a great actress, least of all, I suspect, her own. (She was a former Miss UK and went on to be Michael Winner's PA.) There's nothing pretentious about her. This may be pure projection on my part, but I get the feeling the rest of the cast (the "proper" actors) really like her, especially the Grants.

This week I've watched a nice little sequence where Bobby and Sheila went round to Alan and Sam for dinner and had to squat on floor cushions at the low table while they were served Asian food with chopsticks. Sheila asked if Alan and Sam planned to get married and Sam went into a spiel about marriage being an antiquated custom. It certainly highlighted Alan and Sam's modern, less conservative lifestyle and outlook, but the episode also showed us a lot about Bobby and Sheila's open-mindedness and acceptance of others' views that further endeared them to me. Conversations that were potential fuel for disagreement, offence or arguments were met with humour and got across that - despite Sheila's irritation with Alan dropping in and out of her house all the time - they genuinely like each other. And yes, I'm sure you're right that this comes from the actors really liking one another.

I guess Roger's mum and dad slightly predate this trend. (I bloody love Roger's mum and dad.) They break the social boundaries of the close but in a way that feels real: Roger's dad befriends the Grants partly because he knows it'll wind his uptight son up, and it's kind of easier to be everybody's pal when you can bugger off back to your own home in a couple of days.

Yes - they've visited a few times at this point and it's always enjoyable to watch.

They don't even have to say that much: you just unquestioningly believe in the three of them as sisters. Same with the Grants -- there's a palpable sense of family history without us needing to be fed acres of superfluous back story.

Thinking about it, we know surprisingly little about the characters' histories. When we do get snippets it's always to great effect. In a recent episode, Barry spoke about the friends he hung round with in his teenage years and the trouble he got into. It included him talking about a friend who he'd watched climbed some building for a dare who ended up falling and landing on a railing ("He was dead by the time the ambulance arrived"). It was pretty dark and shocking and gave me more sympathy for him because of the fact that he'd lived with that trauma all these years.

 

[James from London]

Meanwhile, the Collinses didn’t send flowers to Petra because they couldn’t afford them (I hope they at least managed a card). Their forgetting about Gavin’s funeral until Annabelle, with horror, found herself following the funeral cortege also felt enjoyably at odds with your typical soap community where all the homes are well-represented at the funeral and wake (while the service was offscreen, Barry appeared to be the only regular present at the wake).

It struck me as fascinatingly perverse that, after the episodes that occur on the day of Gavin's death where it's all about Petra, the following week's episodes, dealing with his funeral, are (as far as I remember) shown almost exclusively from the Collins' point of view, with Petra little more than an extra.

With everything the writers keep putting Petra through, I feel bad saying that I find her misery indulgent sometimes. This, I think, has more to do with her dependence on other people which - while fully understandable - occasionally steps into her coming across as unappreciative. In the last few episodes, Michelle, Barry and Terry have gone out of their way to offer practical help, and it somehow feels that it’s not enough. When Barry - having installed the arch and breakfast bar - drew the line at putting up wallpaper (interior decorating being too “poofy” for him), Petra went into an entitled whine. Then she slouched in a chair sulking while Michelle struggled on with it. But she was up and about again when Terry was there, making a display of decorating badly in order to solicit his offer of help.

Brookside really broke all the rules of narrative structure and pacing that had existed in soaps thus far. I vaguely remember reading that on Coronation Street (and possibly Crossroads), no storyline lasted longer than six weeks. If not wholly resolved, it would at least be put on a back burner for a long period. Brookside, however, was unafraid to play things out in something like real time, even to the point of monotony. So Petra's grief goes on and on and on ... and on, just as Sheila's postnatal depression later would. (On any other soap, a grieving widow would have gotten two or three weeks in the spotlight, then taken a backseat until she was "better"). Similarly, Alexandra Pigg isn't afraid to play Petra as unsympathetically or mundanely or awkwardly as the situation calls for. The priority seems to be being truthful to the situation rather than entertaining to the viewer (which is probably why they started bringing in bigger characters like Alan, to offset all this truthful mundanity.) I think she's amazingly good.

Another rule-breaking way in which Brookside went on and on and on is in the length of its scenes. Over on Coronation Street, when an argument reached such a pitch that a character would storm upstairs, the scene would naturally end -- if only because upstairs simply didn't exist: the set hadn't been built. And without realising it, viewers became accustomed to that rhythm: shouty climax, slam of door, end of scene. With Brookie set in real houses on a real estate, however, such a situation could continue indefinitely and often did, with characters able to follow each other upstairs, from room to room, even house to house. One of the remarkable things about the Sheila/Marie showdown @Ome mentioned is the rhythm of it (or lack thereof): it builds, explodes, dies down, reignites, changes configuration, continues ... before ending on an oddly melancholic note. At the time, it felt totally unpredictable, even disorientating: this isn't how TV was supposed to work! (Same goes for that first Den and Angie two-hander on Enders.)

When Barry tells Petra to grow up (in a scene that gives us what I believe is Brookie’s first flashback - to the night of her final row with Gavin) when she almost smashes the glass door again, it’s extremely harsh.

Given its dedication to realism, it's funny that Brookside would utilise the flashback convention at a time when UK soaps just didn't do that sort of thing. They'd occasionally play with disorientating camera angles as well. It's a very effective way of keeping the audience off-balance, an anything-is-possible feeling tossed into the almost documentary naturalism of the rest of the series.

Of course, this is what makes Petra so fascinating. There’s a lot that’s unsaid, and a lot going on underneath tied in with the complexities of grief, guilt and who knows what else. Was her momentary belief that she’d seen Gavin at the car showroom a reflection of the searching cycle of grief or a cry for help to ensure Barry would know she was too vulnerable for him to leave her (which they both knew was about to happen)? Perhaps it was both. And then some.

Fascinating take: I'd never considered that she might have partially engineered the moment, but it makes absolute sense. And then the trauma of that incident collides with the comedy of Sheila crashing Bobby's car with Barry caught between the two women. Have you reached the episode Barry pays Karen to cook Sunday dinner for him and Pet yet? I'll say no more about it in case you haven't.

The Heather/Roger situation is giving us the series’ first soapy affair. Again, though, the picture is painted in shades of grey. At times, both are pretty unlikeable.

This is the first of four illicit affairs Brookside covers in its first 350 episodes. All the others are shown from a specific viewpoint. This one, as I recall, is shown fairly equally from Heather's and Roger's points of view. It's great!

I’ve caught up with that Paul/Gordon exchange @James from London mentioned where they gave the new Maestro its inaugural spin and chatted about Gordon being afraid of Heather for being too pretty and other randomness such as whether they will turn left or right at their junction. In retrospect I can’t help wondering if there’s some very early foreshadowing and symbolism present here.

Yes, one could read some foreshadowing into Gordon's attitude to Heather but I actually think that makes it less interesting. It "explains away" all of Gordon's wonderful idiosyncrasies a little too neatly for my tastes. I'm remained of the running gag in Friends where people keep assuming Chandler is gay. As a result, a significant proportion of the audience thought that the character should come out as gay, but as Matthew Perry explained, that would have killed the joke, which was all about Chandler's insecurities and anxieties about his masculinity. When Gordon 2 arrives, all he is is gay -- righteously, boringly gay. All of the little details that made Gordon 1 so fascinating and believable have been completely flattened out.

we know surprisingly little about the characters' histories.

Thinking about it, it's only Paul and then Harry who are particularly prone to reminiscing about the past. I guess it makes sense given both are older and remember the war. Only much later, towards the end of the decade when I'm getting ready to switch Brookside off for good, do we get into the more conventionally soapy secret pasts of some of the other families.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

It struck me as fascinatingly perverse that, after the episodes that occur on the day of Gavin's death where it's all about Petra, the following week's episodes, dealing with his funeral, are (as far as I remember) shown almost exclusively from the Collins' point of view, with Petra little more than an extra.

Now I've read your comments about Brookie playing its stories out in real time over long periods I can't help tying this in with that and wonder if changing perspective was partly to keep the story live without burnout (or would that be too close to following the soap rules?).

I really did enjoy the perspective of seeing the funeral objectively through the eyes of people who are mostly removed from the situation and tied to Petra only through happening to live on the same street. It helped drive home the disparate, isolated pockets of characters contained within the series at that point. Five or six months down the line and the dynamics have changed already, as I'm sure they will continue to do. But we're still seeing a good number of scenes through net curtains, sometimes with commentary.

Another rule-breaking way in which Brookside went on and on and on is in the length of its scenes. Over on Coronation Street, when an argument reached such a pitch that a character would storm upstairs, the scene would naturally end -- if only because upstairs simply didn't exist: the set hadn't been built. And without realising it, viewers became accustomed to that rhythm: shouty climax, slam of door, end of scene. With Brookie set in real houses on a real estate, however, such a situation could continue indefinitely and often did, with characters able to follow each other upstairs, from room to room, even house to house.

This week I watched a scene where Karen and Ducksie were sat enjoying the sun on the muddy grass in front of the Grants' house. Lucy walked by, followed by Paul. Polite exchanges were made in both cases ("Hiya.", "Nice day", "Yeah", etc.) but they all had their own stuff going on (Karen and Ducksie were nattering about teen stuff. Lucy had just stormed out of the house after an angry exchange with her parents) which each neighbour was oblivious to. As well as giving the sense of distance that's still there between neighbours - with exchanges differing depending on whether they're public (in front of neighbours) or private (behind closed doors with immediate family) - I've realised it's also a nice example of the continuing scenes you were saying about. There was no sense of cutting away - we simply saw the same thing from a different perspective. Just as we had with Gavin's funeral.

One of the remarkable things about the Sheila/Marie showdown @Ome mentioned is the rhythm of it (or lack thereof): it builds, explodes, dies down, reignites, changes configuration, continues ... before ending on an oddly melancholic note. At the time, it felt totally unpredictable, even disorientating: this isn't how TV was supposed to work!

I can't wait! There's so little I remember about early Brookie that it mostly feels brand new to me, so I'm really looking forward to seeing this sustained showdown, how this comes about and the fallout.

Given its dedication to realism, it's funny that Brookside would utilise the flashback convention at a time when UK soaps just didn't do that sort of thing. They'd occasionally play with disorientating camera angles as well. It's a very effective way of keeping the audience off-balance, an anything-is-possible feeling tossed into the almost documentary naturalism of the rest of the series.

As I watched, I wasn't quite sure how to feel about it. Objectively it seemed a little cheesy, but in the moment it made its point perfectly. I also found it weirdly meta that Michelle later described what Petra had experienced as being "like a flashback in a film". Which, bizarrely, gave more depth to the situation and made it feel even more truthful.

Fascinating take: I'd never considered that she might have partially engineered the moment, but it makes absolute sense.

I quite like that I'm not quite sure about it. But if it was engineered, I also find it psychologically interesting to think that Petra was possibly as unaware of this as anyone.

Have you reached the episode Barry pays Karen to cook Sunday dinner for him and Pet yet? I'll say no more about it in case you haven't.

Oh yes. I neglected to mention it, I think, but that was a lovely sequence that practically had me squirming with the awkwardness.

This is the first of four illicit affairs Brookside covers in its first 350 episodes. All the others are shown from a specific viewpoint.

Interesting.

Weirdly, as I read this, four affairs in 350 episodes sounded a lot. Then I realised it's probably something like three-and-a-half years. And as I write, I'm realising that this is about the same number as episodes that Dallas or Knots had in their entirety, and it really doesn't sound like a lot.

Yes, one could read some foreshadowing into Gordon's attitude to Heather but I actually think that makes it less interesting. It "explains away" all of Gordon's wonderful idiosyncrasies a little too neatly for my tastes. I'm remained of the running gag in Friends where people keep assuming Chandler is gay. As a result, a significant proportion of the audience thought that the character should come out as gay, but as Matthew Perry explained, that would have killed the joke, which was all about Chandler's insecurities and anxieties about his masculinity. When Gordon 2 arrives, all he is is gay -- righteously, boringly gay. All of the little details that made Gordon 1 so fascinating and believable have been completely flattened out.

I think you're spot on, James. It's a bit of a curse to rewatch a series knowing where a characters' journey takes them long term, but I completely agree that Gordon is far more interesting as a teen with idiosyncrasies without explanation.

I don't know (or at least remember) much of the background. Somewhere at the back of my mind I'm remembering (or imagining) that part of the reason for the recast was to age Gordon up a bit to make the coming out story more palatable to audiences of the time (or perhaps to give the meatier story to a more experienced actor), but I'm also thinking that for Brookie's first few years there was no plan for Gordon to be gay and I'm enjoying it on this level.

The Chandler reference has made me wonder if there was ever any speculation about Gordon's sexuality from viewers in the early years?

Thinking about it, it's only Paul and then Harry who are particularly prone to reminiscing about the past. I guess it makes sense given both are older and remember the war.

Yes, and I suppose both have that Colonel Blimp quality as well, which frequently seems to come with a wired-in tendency to look back on the good old days.

 

[Ome]

I love the first Gordon.

I recently read that Nigel Crowley quit the show when they discussed his character coming out. It's a shame because I thought he was a great actor and it would have been so much more if he had continued. I'm not saying his replacement wasn't good enough, but I felt he was too over the top with it all. Funnily, I keep seeing his boyfriend Christoper in Gordon's best mate Mark.

Meanwhile, Lucy’s attended her CND rally with Margi Clark

When I spotted her I wasn't sure and looked for her name in the credits, only to be thrown off because she used a different surname. What blew me away a little was another of Karen's friends who I recognised from LETTER TO BREZHNEF and then found out she is the sister of Margi.

(and I did occasionally, especially in his classic "Can I have a pint of bitter beer?" scene).

I absolutely loved that, even though it was kinda silly, though I wondered how real it would or could have been for something around that year because it was a very different world back then.

Her public breakdowns have been the cause of some interesting scenes,

Every so often I watch a scene and it almost comes alive in my mind, like I remember the whole scene and even dialogue and as soon as I saw Petra in the supermarket, I knew what was coming with the biscuits.

It always strikes me as odd or bizarre how this happens. though I guess credit to the show that certain scenes and conversations stick in my head. When Heather confronts Roger after hearing him on the phone with Diane, I knew every line that came out of her. I was trying to think if I had watched that scene over and over. Similar to Marie saying to Michelle, "The worst is yet to come' and even Tommy McArdle saying "Have you guys ever seen a video nasty?"



I'm now in February 1984 and I was blown away by a scene involving Damon. Only because I remember Sheila talking to someone (maybe Billy, not sure) about Damon putting cling film on the toilet seat at school. I thought (at the time) that this was just thrown in for a little bit of humour after Damon is killed. I can't remember when it's discussed only that I never thought it had actually happened on the show. During that scene, there is another nice little surprise when another Corkhill turns up to speak to DSamon in the corridor. I often wonder if the actors recognise each other or are already known to each other.

I also forgot about Alan's mum turning up, played by another brilliant actress, I'm loving all her scenes.

 

[Ome]

This a question I keep meaning to ask all those who watched the original run.


When did you stop watching the show ?

After you stopped watching, did you ever tune back in to see if it had improved or worsened?


I know @James from London said the show took a wrong turn for him at the end of the 80s, but I'm curious how much more you watched.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

I recently read that Nigel Crowley quit the show when they discussed his character coming out. It's a shame because I thought he was a great actor and it would have been so much more if he had continued.

Now you've said this, I'm fairly sure I remember reading this back in the day. Probably in either the Soap Box or Supersoaps book which were my bibles at the time.

I agree it's a shame, and it would be interesting to know more about his reasons, such as whether it was because he simply didn't want to play a gay character or because he felt it wasn't true to the character. I'll have to dig those book out and see if there's any more insight there.

I'm not saying his replacement wasn't good enough, but I felt he was too over the top with it all.

The first time round I didn't begin watching until that window of time where Nigel Crowley had departed, Mark Burgess hadn't arrived and Gordon was just a faceless name mentioned by Gordon and Annabelle.

Mark was the first Gordon I'd seen, and he remained the only one until Brookie was re-run on some satellite channel somewhere around the mid-Nineties. I knew he was a recast, so I had nothing to compare him with, which was probably for the best as I don't recall having a problem with him. That said, I remember very little about him other than he had a partner called Christopher (who at the time I thought was rather dishy) and the sequence where the pair of them rescued Mona from the abusive retirement home. I'm not sure how I'll feel this time round, but with STV only releasing 5 episodes per week at least there will once again be a reasonable gap between the two Gordons.

Incidentally, around the time I started rewatching recently, I somehow stumbled upon this interview with Mark Burgess on his Brookside days. It's a nice little time capsule and he appears to look fondly back on those days. I couldn't help noting that it doesn't mention him being a recast anywhere in the interview, and would have been interested to know how he felt about it and if he'd watched any of Nigel's episodes before, during or since.

When I spotted her I wasn't sure and looked for her name in the credits, only to be thrown off because she used a different surname.

Same here. In her first episode, I actually said out loud, "that's Margi Clark". Then in the credits a different surname was used and I initially wrote it off. It was only a day or two later that I thought to look at Margi's IMDb page and see if she'd been credited with a different name.

What blew me away a little was another of Karen's friends who I recognised from LETTER TO BREZHNEF and then found out she is the sister of Margi.

Oh wow. Karen's friends have been featured a fair bit lately, so I'll keep an eye out. I forget their names, though there's one called Elsa who fancies Damon.

Writing this, it's only just occurred to me that both Karen and Damon have similar triadic friendship groups.

I guess credit to the show that certain scenes and conversations stick in my head. When Heather confronts Roger after hearing him on the phone with Diane, I knew every line that came out of her. I was trying to think if I had watched that scene over and over. Similar to Marie saying to Michelle, "The worst is yet to come' and even Tommy McArdle saying "Have you guys ever seen a video nasty?"

Absolutely. There are similar fragments that rattle round my head as well. For instance, I loved the strained relationship Paul Collins had with Annabelle's mother, and a line that always sticks in my mind is where he read a letter she'd written to them and tutted that writing in green ink is the first sign of madness. I've never been able to see a green-ink pen without having a little chuckle, and whenever I've had one of those four-colour pens, the green is always the last one to run out.

There's also that little monologue of Sue Sullivan's (I think to Barry) where she talked about the innards that come out of a slug when you step on it, and said that's how she thought of him.

This a question I keep meaning to ask all those who watched the original run.


When did you stop watching the show ?

My timeline with Nineties Brookie is very muddled indeed. I had thought I'd stopped watching round about the time of Sue's line above. But looking at it, that took place in 1991 and I know I saw quite a bit after that, such as all the Jordache stuff and (unfortunately) a fair bit of the Lindsay Corkhill and Casa BevRon era.

I think I became less interested around the time Brookside Parade came along, and drifted away entirely by the latter part of the Nineties, but I don't remember a specific thing that did it for me, other than it had declined to the point where I was only watching out of some kind of hope that it would right itself.

After you stopped watching, did you ever tune back in to see if it had improved or worsened?

Again, I can't really remember. It could be that I stopped watching regularly but still tuned in occasionally. It's probably quite telling that I can't even remember how I watched it. They say that the true opposite of love is indifference, and that's how I felt about Brookie past a certain point.

I do remember tuning in for the final episode in 2003.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Episodes 76 - 80
20 July - 3 August 1983​

This is really just a love letter to Jimmy McGovern’s writing.

Last night I watched four of these five: two consecutive Andy Lynch episodes followed by two Jimmy McGoverns. Good as the Lynch episodes were (particularly Barry’s exit for London, taking Sheila’s kidney fund collection money and rubbing her nose in it) I was struck by how things sparkled into life when I hit the two McG episodes.

Particularly notable was the injection of humour running through the episode, especially in any scene featuring the Grants.

The household itself was a hotbed of quips and acid put-downs, each one met with raucous laughter from Bobby and Damon. Such as Damon speaking about Karen’s physique:

That Alsatian down the road went for ‘er yesterday.Thought she was a bone.

(Incidentally, Damon's teasing vindicated an irritation I'd had with an earlier scene in which Sheila discovered Bobby was considering working in Saudi Arabia. I didn't catch any of the dialogue in the scene because I noticed Shelagh O'Hara was constantly moving food round her plate with a fork but didn't once eat anything. Once noticed it was a complete distraction).

There was a continuation of a theme introduced in an earlier episode (which I’m guessing was also penned by Jimmy Mac) where Bobby and Damon had made merry over Karen’s boyfriend’s surname being Bacon, with endless puns on the subject: such as Bobby claiming to know his father… Smoky. This time round, Karen’s boyfriend (Jack Boswell from Bread) is named Mike which provides the male Grants with much fodder. When Mike says he’s unemployed, having recently completed a YOP, Damon asks if people tap him on the head twice and ask why he’s not working. As Mike is leaving, Bobby comments that he bets Mike’s parents are great speakers. It’s not all one-sided, though. When Bobby explains that it’s just their sense of humour, Mike returns that this explains Damon’s shirt.

Less watchable for me are a series of scenes where Damon and Gizzmo wear shades and effect American accents with Damon influenced by Mickey Spillane (somehow I just can’t see Damon lying on his bed with a book).

Following a hastily-introduced peeping Tom lurking in the woods behind the houses, there’s some business with Damon and Gizzmo frightening Karen and her friend who are sunbathing in the Grants’ garden by pretending to be ghosts. It’s daft and would be unnecessary but for Sheila’s reaction when she tells Gizzmo:

Gerrout of my sight ya great gangling gorp.

This causes him to leave almost backwards, tripping over a sun lounger as he exits. I’m not sure if this was by design or an accident, but either way it was really funny. Adding more iconography to his departure, this is immediately followed by Gizzmo spotting a pile of gravel on the drive and propping the two wellies so that it looks as though someone was buried beneath it.

The Grant humour affects interactions with other households as well. There was some Corrie-esque business with Damon and Roger competing to replace a pane of glass in Alan’s front door in a bid to impress Sam, with Roger initially winning but botching it so badly he has to go to Damon, cap in hand, to ask for the correctly-cut glass Damon has. Naturally, Damon makes a few quid from it, as well as the satisfaction of enjoying Roger’s humiliation.

And mixed in among this is more conventional soap drama with Roger’s ongoing affair and the zenith of Petra’s disturbed emotional state which sees her overturning a table in a pub garden, bingeing on biscuits and then having a meltdown in a supermarket.

Incidentally, Michelle really clicked with me in these episodes after Sam fought off the Brookside flasher in her bungalow and Roger had gone upon hearing Sam’s scream, smashing that door pane with his briefcase. Michelle believed the injury to Roger’s hand was from singlehandedly fighting off a rapist-stroke-murderer to rescue Sam, and she wouldn’t have it any other way. What’s more, it seemed this had given her a crush on him. Something about her naivety in these scenes was very endearing, and I realised she’s kind of the template for later characters such as Debbie McGrath.

It’s also worth noting that neither Heather nor any of the Collinses featured in these last four episodes. Roger was flying the flag for the Haves and the Habitats all by himself.

A bit of a milestone: Episode 77, which I watched last night, was broadcast 40 years ago today, which means episodes from here onwards will all have been screened within the past four decades.

 

[soapfan]

I agree with James From London, Brookside was at its best during the 1980s up until 1990.

If Brookside had stayed as it was WITHOUT the shopping precinct (Brookside Parade) and hadn't become sensationalised during 1991-2003, it would still be going today. The decline of Brookside began by having the shopping precinct brought into the show in the first place which began the start of the sensationalism and explosions by the end of the 1990s.

The only way Brookside could have been saved and still going today would have been to return to its roots during 1982-1990 and completely drawing the line under 1991-2003 with the shopping precinct being axed altogether and just focussing on the houses at Brookside Close again, bringing back Sue Johnston, Ricky Tomlinson, John McArdle, Amanda Burton etc to name a few examples to reboot the show.