Soap Opera Moments That Stopped The Country
Soaps produced the largest shared television audiences Britain has ever had, and a handful of episodes were genuinely national events.
Here are the ones people still talk about.
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EastEnders
- Christmas Day 1986 - Den Watts hands Angie the divorce papers. Around 30 million people watched across the episode and its repeat, one of the highest British audiences ever recorded.
- 1989 - Den shot by the canal, holding a bunch of daffodils, and gone for fourteen years.
- 1990 - Nick Cotton's return, and the phrase 'Leave it, Nick'.
- 2001 - 'You ain't my muvver!' and the Slater family revelation.
- 2010 - the live 25th anniversary episode, and the reveal of Archie Mitchell's killer live on air.
- The duff-duff drums, which are the most recognisable sound in British television.
Coronation Street
- 1964 - Ena Sharples, Elsie Tanner and Annie Walker set the template for everything after.
- 1983 - Deirdre and Ken versus Mike Baldwin, and the scoreboard at Old Trafford announcing that Deirdre had stayed with Ken.
- 1998 - Deirdre wrongly imprisoned, and a genuine national 'Free the Weatherfield One' campaign with the Prime Minister commenting.
- 2003 - Richard Hillman driving the family into the canal.
- 2010 - the 50th anniversary live episode and the tram crash.
- Hilda Ogden's final scene in 1987, which drew 26.6 million viewers.
Brookside
- 1993 - the body under the patio. Trevor Jordache, buried in the garden by Mandy and Beth Dixon after years of abuse, and dug up in 1995.
- 1994 - Beth Jordache and Margaret Clemence's kiss, the first pre-watershed lesbian kiss on British television.
- 1998 - the Simpsons' siege and the Brookside Close explosions.
- The show was set in a real cul-de-sac in Liverpool that Channel 4 bought outright.
- It ended in 2003 and is still the most formally daring British soap there has been.
The others
- Emmerdale, 1993 - the plane crash that destroyed the village, broadcast close to the Lockerbie anniversary and heavily criticised for it.
- Emmerdale dropped 'Farm' from its name after that storyline.
- Hollyoaks and the Channel 4 teen soap arriving in 1995.
- Neighbours, 1988 - Scott and Charlene's wedding, watched by around 20 million people in the UK, more than in Australia.
- Crossroads, its wobbly sets, and the fact that 15 million people watched it anyway.
- Take the High Road, Pobol y Cwm and the regional soaps that had devoted audiences the London press ignored.
Why it doesn't happen now
- Audiences fragmented across hundreds of channels and then across streaming.
- Catch-up removed the need to watch at the same time as everybody else.
- Soap audiences that would once have been a crisis are now normal.
- Nothing has replaced the shared event - the closest are live sport and the occasional finale.
- The last true one was arguably the Coronation Street 50th anniversary live episode in 2010.
How to write it so it lands
- Den and Angie, Christmas 1986, is the high water mark.
- Brookside's patio storyline ran for two years before the body was found.
- Nothing will draw those audiences again.
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Frequently asked questions
What was the most watched soap episode in the UK?
The EastEnders Christmas Day 1986 episode in which Den hands Angie divorce papers. Counting the original broadcast and the omnibus repeat, it is usually given at around 30 million viewers.
What was the body under the patio in Brookside?
Trevor Jordache, killed and buried in the garden by his wife Mandy and daughter Beth after years of abuse, in 1993. The body was discovered in 1995 and the storyline ran for two years.
What was the Free the Weatherfield One campaign?
A real public campaign in 1998 after Coronation Street's Deirdre Rachid was wrongly imprisoned. It reached the national news and was commented on by the Prime Minister.
How many people watched Scott and Charlene's wedding?
Around 20 million in the UK in 1988 - substantially more than watched it in Australia, where Neighbours was made.
Do you sell DVDs or TV merchandise?
No - we make greeting cards, art prints and pin badges in the UK. This is written for the pleasure of remembering it, and the only products on this page are our own cards.