Soap
- Rob Kazinsky, from EastEnders
While I loathe and detest soap opera, obviously, it fascinates me. The same basic plots played out again and again in slightly different frocks.
At its best, it's an accelerated mirror of society, highlighting the social issues of the moment and showing many sides of a debate. At its worst it's attention grabbing, overblown, and utterly insufferable.
But my main interest is about the way the plot strands intermingle and entwine, the way the viewer is drawn in to one plot before the previous one ends, to keep the audience hooked.
In many ways it's like a clinically structured version of real life, as I've been reminded this weekend. We're living through the fringes of a number of interesting stories, occasionally touching them, occasionally influencing them. Our own real life soaps are far more interesting than the ones on TV. So I won't be writing about them.
30 October, 2006
