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TV Soaps (Soap Operas) & Continuing Dramas

Naughty_Felid

Naughty_Felid

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Joined
Mar 11, 2008
Messages
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No idea how I got to this site but fairly interesting in a hauntological way as very few people under 50 will remember her. I was never a fan - I was too young. No idea why I'm posting it.

It's worth a look as it's quite strange, it's a fluff piece. Her signing the autograph for the young kid. Simpler and stranger times...

https://crossroads.transdiffusion.net/tag/joan-gordon

Noele Gordon lives something of a dual existence. To millions of TV fans she is Meg Mortimer, owner of the Crossroads Motel; many almost refuse to believe that she is simply an actress playing a part, with a very different private life of her own away from the TV studios. To them Meg is a real person....

incredible-noele-3.jpg
 
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Crossroads Motel had a chef called Shughie McFee (my mum watched it, I was just in the room) and he had a line about needing to call his mother. I read that a live phone number was given out by accident and some poor housewife up north was inundated with calls from fans wanting to talk to Shughie's mum.
 
Bad Bungle said:
Crossroads Motel had a chef called Shughie McFee (my mum watched it, I was just in the room) and he had a line about needing to call his mother. I read that a live phone number was given out by accident and some poor housewife up north was inundated with calls from fans wanting to talk to Shughie's mum.
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I remember watching Crossroads back in the day. God, it was pretty bleak at times.
 
Amy Turtle had to be the inspiration behind Mrs Overall in Acorn Antiques
Early role for Kathy Staff who looked the same as in LOTSW
Roger Tongue (Sandy) was the first disabled actor in a mainstream Soap
Read with delight in the Obit (2004) for Carl Wayne (lead singer with The Move 'til 1970) that he'd married "Miss Diane" from Crossroads - rock 'n' roll eh.
 
Naughty_Felid said:
No idea how I got to this site but fairly interesting in a hauntological way as very few people under 50 will remember her. I was never a fan - I was too young. No idea why I'm posting it.

It's worth a look as it's quite strange, it's a fluff piece. Her signing the autograph for the young kid. Simpler and stranger times...

https://crossroads.transdiffusion.net/tag/joan-gordon

Noele Gordon lives something of a dual existence. To millions of TV fans she is Meg Mortimer, owner of the Crossroads Motel; many almost refuse to believe that she is simply an actress playing a part, with a very different private life of her own away from the TV studios. To them Meg is a real person....

incredible-noele-3.jpg
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Crossroads, yup, there were people who were TOTALLY addicted to it. The former Mr Snail was a big fan of all shite TV/crappy soaps/continuing dramas. Normally tolerant of his foibles, I drew the line at Crossroads.

There was a Crossroads character called Benny, a sort of country bumpkin handyman who always wore a woolly hat. The British troops in the Falklands nicknamed the locals 'Bennies' after him.
When they were told to stop it they called them 'Stills' instead, because they were Still Bennies.
 
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escargot said:
Crossroads, yup, there were people who were TOTALLY addicted to it. The former Mr Snail was a big fan of all shite TV/crappy soaps/continuing dramas. Normally tolerant of his foibles, I drew the line at Crossroads.
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Gosh, I had an ex like that as well!! He watched all the soaps, even the really crappy ones, like Flying Doctors and Take the High Road.

I'm afraid me and my friend Mel (the late, much missed Melody; she of the lard sandwiches in fact!) used to get very stoned and take the piss really badly; we also got our own back by making him sit through our 'Awwww hour', of Pet Rescue and Animal Hospital.

Happy times (mostly... well, bits of it... well, meh, I least I met Mel and had my lovely son)
 
Flying Doctors

*gasp* The Flying Doctors was fab!
And it wasn't a soap, it was a series.

Ah, are you thinking of The Young Doctors?

 
Fluttermoth said:
Gosh, I had an ex like that as well!! He watched all the soaps, even the really crappy ones, like Flying Doctors and Take the High Road.
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The ex would say 'GUESS who's pregnant!' At the time my extended family were popping out babies like clockwork so I'd say 'Oooh who?' and go through all the names of my sisters and sisters in law. He'd shake his head and say 'No, it's Sharon at Number Four!' (or whoever.)
I'd sigh and say 'It's Coronation Street/Eastenders/Neighbours again isn't it?'

He also caught me out with divorces, prison sentences, illegitimacy revelations, car crashes, you name it...
If he could knit he'd have made bootees for all the new Soap babies.

Mel sounds great.
 
I remember the Flying Doctors when they were using a Auntie JU 52
or a Ford Tri-motor not sure which but it was a long time ago.
 
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escargot said:
The ex would say 'GUESS who's pregnant!' At the time my extended family were popping out babies like clockwork so I'd say 'Oooh who?' and go through all the names of my sisters and sisters in law. He'd shake his head and say 'No, it's Sharon at Number Four!' (or whoever.)
I'd sigh and say 'It's Coronation Street/Eastenders/Neighbours again isn't it?'

He also caught me out with divorces, prison sentences, illegitimacy revelations, car crashes, you name it...
If he could knit he'd have made bootees for all the new Soap babies.
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OMG, that sounds familiar! Mine used to get so involved, even though he (obviously!) knew that they weren't real, he'd spend hours talking about what they'd done, it was extremely tedious.

Mel sounds great.
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She was more than great, she was bloody amazing, I should write a post about her sometime, she was quite remarkable!
 
Wha ?? wait - how did I end up on a Soap/drama thread ? Can't even remember what I was posting on this morning.
Well, since I'm here ..
 
My mother went through a spell of watching Crossroads. I think it was her way of signalling that she should be allowed out of the house.

Pebble Mill at One was the other fixture of her daytime t.v. habit, which confirmed that remedy for a condition then unnamed.

Victoria Wood's parody version, Acorn Antiques, was entirely drawn from close observation of the original.

Depression used to set in with the first wavering twang of the theme-tune, which suffered from the same imperfect centring of the record - or a flattened roller on the tape - for years. No one cared enough to fix it or indeed to fix any of the cast.

It dragged on for years and years, Noële Gordon agonising over her stolen figurines, while occasionally intervening in the dysfunctional lives of her minions, like a benign Goddess. It was a feudal world, if I might name that without evoking politics.

Her pretend-engagement to Larry Grayson makes me wonder whether she was the model for Sister George! Did I not read that somewhere? :confused:
 
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Mythopoeika said:
I remember watching Crossroads back in the day. God, it was pretty bleak at times.
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Indeed it was with its cardboard scenery. Why is it that soap operas always seem to peddle depressing misery? Take Australia for example they could have made a great uplifting story in the "lucky country" but instead they gave us Prisoner Cell Block H, which most people only watched to hear the beautiful theme tune.
 
XBergMann said:
Indeed it was with its cardboard scenery. Why is it that soap operas always seem to peddle depressing misery? Take Australia for example they could have made a great uplifting story in the "lucky country" but instead they gave us Prisoner Cell Block H, which most people only watched to hear the beautiful theme tune.
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I actually watched a few episodes of that.
 
Naughty_Felid said:
I can't believe I'm responsible for a TV soaps thread...
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Hang your head in shame.

XBergMann said:
Indeed it was with its cardboard scenery. Why is it that soap operas always seem to peddle depressing misery? Take Australia for example they could have made a great uplifting story in the "lucky country" but instead they gave us Prisoner Cell Block H, which most people only watched to hear the beautiful theme tune.
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I got addicted to that when it was shown late at night here. It became something of a cult show - so bad it was good.
 
XBergMann said:
Indeed it was with its cardboard scenery. Why is it that soap operas always seem to peddle depressing misery? Take Australia for example they could have made a great uplifting story in the "lucky country" but instead they gave us Prisoner Cell Block H, which most people only watched to hear the beautiful theme tune.
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I caught it by mistake, then it became compulsive viewing, just to see how awful it could get.
 
hunck said:
I got addicted to that when it was shown late at night here. It became something of a cult show - so bad it was good.
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Same! There were some genuinely interesting characters in there! I liked Lizzie, Bea was pretty awesome, and Old Vinegar Tits was a brilliant villain (I've forgotten the characters name, lol).
 
XBergMann said:
Indeed it was with its cardboard scenery. Why is it that soap operas always seem to peddle depressing misery? Take Australia for example they could have made a great uplifting story in the "lucky country" but instead they gave us Prisoner Cell Block H, which most people only watched to hear the beautiful theme tune.
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In reply to my original post here is the theme tune along with some archive footage of the cast.

What a truly beautiful song.

 
Prisoner cell block h, as it was known in the uk, became a 90s student cult fave here due to it being late night filler on itv. At that time it was already old having finished in 1986.

There is a current remake called Wentworth Prison.

I grew up watching aussie soaps. 3.30pm on central tv, after school:
The young doctors
Sons and daughters
The sullivans
A country practice

All of which predated neighbours and home and away, and eastenders and hollyoaks.

Aussie tv was very big in the uk in the 80s and 90s in general though.
 
There came a time when I'd had enough of the ex's soaps obsession and refused to even be in the same room as the TV when they were on.
This happened shortly before the demise of Alf Roberts on Coronation Street so I didn't see it.

(Here's a Mandela moment - for some reason I thought I'd later seen that death scene on TV or t'internet or whatever, and that Alf's wife was screaming and crying over his body and trying to wake him up, surrounded by shocked fellow party guests.

Like Sergeant Troy's death in Schlesinger's Far From The Madding Crowd.

So I checked just now and it's nothing like that. Mysterious.)
 
Ladyloafer said:
Prisoner cell block h, as it was known in the uk, became a 90s student cult fave here due to it being late night filler on itv. At that time it was already old having finished in 1986.

There is a current remake called Wentworth Prison.

I grew up watching aussie soaps. 3.30pm on central tv, after school:
The young doctors
Sons and daughters
The sullivans
A country practice

All of which predated neighbours and home and away, and eastenders and hollyoaks.

Aussie tv was very big in the uk in the 80s and 90s in general though.
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Pat The Rat! She haunted my nightmares as a kid, can't remember why...
 
Dinobot said:
Pat The Rat! She haunted my nightmares as a kid, can't remember why...
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I think i was possibly the only student who DIDNT actually watch it. My friend was obsessed however. Iirc the actresses came over to the uk for club appearances and such?
 
Way back when, it was a habit/tradition for a gang of us to tip out of the pub just before closing time at the nearest chippie. We'd then ask for £5 or £10 (depending on how much we'd collected) of "anything". They'd bag up anything they couldn't sell or reheat on the following day - chicken pieces, pies, some fish, sausages - and a load of chips.
We'd then high tail it around to one of our abodes just in time to watch Prisoner Cell Block H. Best way to watch it; half-cut and scoffing down deep fried food!
 
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