In the light of John Humphrys’ overblown opinions on the corrupting influence of soaps – too aggressive apparently – I feel I should, as someone with a passing familiarity with the genre, point out his error. The real problem with soaps is not the aggression, it’s the fact that the characters spend all their time lying to each other. It’s one porkie after another: they can’t help themselves. “Where are you off to, Tom?” “Just off down to the butcher, Mavis.” But he isn’t of course, as any soap aficionado will immediately realise. He is in fact just off down the pub, or the bookies, or the travel agent, or for a walk by the canal – anywhere but the butcher. Why? Because you’ve then got a plot, you’ve got a bit of tension. At what point will Mavis discover that Tom has been lying to her? Maybe she’ll quite by chance bump into Terry from the butcher’s later that day (walking by the canal perhaps, after telling Tom she was just off to the supermarket). “Hello there Terry. Hope you didn’t palm Tom off with some dodgy piece of scrag end this morning!” Terry looks puzzled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about Mavis. Haven’t seen Tom all day.” At which point we get a close up of Mavis as her expression flickers tantalisingly between puzzlement and anger.
Every time there’s a situation where someone has to report what they’ve been doing, they will inevitably lie about it. Doesn’t matter whether it’s trivial like Tom’s non-visit to the butcher, or more serious, as in the current EastEnders storyline where Dot starts feeling pain, goes to see the doctor, gets an appointment at the hospital, goes through an extensive range of tests, is told that she has cancer, is offered an operation which might save her life, decides not to have the operation; all this without bothering to tell her husband, resorting instead to an increasingly bizarre range of explanations as to why she’s just popping out for an hour or two. I hate to think what effect this incessant fibbing has on impressionable young minds.
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