Carianne: Hello, folks, and welcome to Beyond Swallow, a Coronation Street podcast. We are continuing our little sojourn into Soap Week. And today we're to talk about Throwback Thursday. So Throwback Thursday is looking into the past, as you would imagine. and we're going to talk about all sorts of different things including our favourite era of soaps, the greatest storyline ever, now that's hard, the most unforgettable episodes and which year was peak soap. So we will start with a favourite era, what's your favourite era? Do you have a favourite era, Elle?

Laurie: Mm. you know what? This is hard because soaps are cyclic, right? You know, they they go through great periods where there's so many good storylines, so many good characters, and then they maybe have a couple of sort of slightly quieter years. but I'm I'm starting to go back and watch when I say classic Coronation Street, but it's from the 2010s, as I'm reliably informed that the 2010s is one of the greatest eras of of Coronation Street. So I'm going back to do that. And when I think about it, in actual fact Yeah, Emma Dell was on top form, East Enders was on top form, you know, the big soaps around that time were doing really well. And I think maybe that had something to do with as well. streaming must have been obviously available, but still in f infancy back sort of so yeah, all that type. So you you had to watch it on TV, not on demand, that sort of thing. So the viewing figures were completely different. Probably the money was a lot more then, so yeah.

Carianne: gosh, yeah.

Laurie: Twenty tens for me, I think. What about you?

Carianne: Well, I did a bit of research on this because I really couldn't decide because I haven't always watched Soaps and haven't always watched all of them, obviously. But it seems to be the consensus seems to be the 1980s. so I looked at it and I thought to myself, yeah, I could probably agree with this. Dallas and dynasty, right? I know they're not Soaps, but you know, this was is peak 1980s. The birth of EastEnders, obviously that.

Laurie: okay, yeah. yeah.

Carianne: period was when EastEnders started. It was peak Corrie. We had the Ken, Mike and Deirdre love triangle. Right. And it seems weird now, but when Ken and Deirdre reconciled, the fact that they reconciled was flashed across the scoreboard at Old Trafford.

Laurie: Yep. my gosh. Re I didn't realise that.

Carianne: Can you believe it? And we had also had the launch of Brookside as well in 1982. And there were some record breaking audiences. Now there's one episode in the 1980s and I'll go on to that later. But it was watched by over 30 million people. Yeah. So I'd say that's like peak, peak soap era for me, I reckon. So the next question we've got was the greatest storyline ever.

Laurie: my gosh. Those bigger viewers are insane, yeah.

Carianne: What are your views on that? I mean there's so many to choose from right?

Laurie: again. This we know we're looking at sixty plus years of soap history, aren't we, if we're including Coronation Street in this. So there's been so, so, so many. The the most sort of recent sort of storylines that I can think of, which I thought were absolutely brilliant, were Mina, the serial killer in Emerdale. I thought that was fantastic. I think Kat Slater being Zoe Slater's mum in East Enders in recent years, that was a really good storyline, after they believed they were sisters for so long. and then also in Brookside, slightly earlier.

Carianne: yeah, yeah.

Laurie: There is the Trevor Jordash under the patio storyline. so good.

Carianne: The body under the patio. my gosh. The body under the patio. Yeah, that was a great storyline. Yeah, mean, the Cats Later one, it's so weird because, okay, my wife's family had something like that go on. So my wife's mum thought that she had a brother, but she didn't have a brother. She had a nephew and her sister had... had a baby and her parents had passed him off as theirs. And it only a two-some. So it does happen. It does happen. It does happen. And it happened a lot, I think, in that generation, I think. Because my wife's aunt was 13 when she got pregnant. And so she had the baby and her parents passed it off as their child. I don't know how they did that. But yeah, for years, my wife's mom thought that it was

Laurie: gosh. Yeah.

Carianne: her sister and her brother, but it wasn't, was her sister and her sister's son. was, yeah. So yeah, that happens. We'll talk about the jaw dashes in a minute, actually. There was another serial killer, the serial killer on the street, which is Hillman. I mean, come on.

Laurie: Well. that was good. Yeah.

Carianne: That was a good storyline. That went on for a while, didn't it? Yeah. Okay. What about your most unforgettable episode?

Laurie: Do you know what? The the ones that stick with me are either the ones that are spectacular, like anytime there's a is a there's a big stunt that they do, but also when like a beloved character dies, 'cause I just it's just so heartbreaking when you you when you sort of watch this character, you sort of get to know this character over the years and years and years and that and th and then they die. So particularly for me, two two very sad ones in in Cory.

Carianne: Right, yeah.

Laurie: was Haley and then Veera's death. I I was I welled up at those. I you know, bit of a bit of a softy as as you know, but yeah, any time there's a a really well loved character that they kill off. Yeah. It was heartbreaking, wasn't it?

Carianne: No. Haley's death, oh my God, Haley's death was just devastating. And all the scenes that led up to it and you know, the Carlos and Haley scenes and the Roy and Haley scenes and the Carla and Roy and Haley scenes and oh my Lord, was, yeah, it was heartbreaking. So the Christmas episode, 1986 for EastEnders.

Laurie: Mm.

Carianne: This was the episode was watched by over 30 million viewers. Den and Angie. Den presents Angie with divorce papers. Now, these days, that doesn't seem a huge thing, does it? But if you think 40 years ago, that was a bigger thing than it is now, let's say, because I think no one would bat an eyelid now if someone asked someone else for a divorce. But then it was all big news.

Laurie: Yeah. Yeah.

Carianne: And of course it got 30 million viewers because there were literally three or four channels. This was Christmas Day. Of course, everybody in the entire country was going to watch it. But to this day, it actually remains the most watched single fictional television episode in British history.

Laurie: Wow. I didn't realise that.

Carianne: And I doubt very much that we'll ever be surpassed because we just don't get those kind of viewing figures now for anything, do we? I mean, they're saying now that the match last the other night was watched by 9.1 million viewers and that's a lot. That is a lot these days. That was the England match watched by that many people. But also, I want to talk about the first lesbian kiss pre-Watershed.

Laurie: Yeah, yeah. Why not?

Carianne: Because, come on, it was 1994, picture the scene.

Laurie: Gosh, I was a young teenager. Yeah, okay.

Carianne: Yeah, I was 25, 20 fucking five before I actually saw a lesbian kiss on a soap for fuck's sake. Anyway, Beth and Margaret getting closer, they are friends, inverted commas, and Beth admits that she wants to be more than that and she wants to kiss Margaret like she kisses boys and then they proceed to kiss and I might go, my God.

Laurie: Yeah.

Carianne: I remember watching it, my jaw was on the floor and I'm like, this is fantastic. Anyway, Section 28 at that point, at that time, prohibited the promotion of homosexuality in schools. And this geezer, this producer, Mal Young, basically said, fuck it, I'm going to do it. He got some letters of complaint, but not many, but one from a mother who said, watching this will turn my... daughter a lesbian. It's like, I don't think it will. But it might have done. I don't know. Maybe it did. Maybe she saw the error of her ways. But then they took it out the omnibus edition because they used to have an omnibus edition. And they took which which obviously showed earlier in the day. And they took it out of that. And there were more complaints about the fact they took it out of the omnibus than the original kiss. So that's just a bit.

Laurie: And it and it did. I don't know. Good.

Carianne: A bit of a bye the bye for you.

Laurie: And also they put it in the section of the twenty twelve Opening Olympics, didn't they? Which was yeah, it was there on the big screen. Yeah.

Carianne: Yes, they did. Danny Boyle used it, yep, as part of the opening ceremony to say, you know, the history of the UK and those kind of things and things that have happened since the last time they hosted the Olympics, which was a long time before that. Yeah, so he put it in there. Bless his heart.

Laurie: Hmm.

Carianne: Okay, so last question I think for this one is, which year was peak soap, do you think? And I mean, we can talk about recent years or older years.

Laurie: This this is difficult. I've got a head like a sieve, which doesn't help. But I'm gonna go I'm gonna go the easy route and I'm gonna say this 2025 into 2026 for me for my b both my favourite soaps, Emerdale and Cor and Coronation Street, because we got the crossover, which has never happened before. And that is peak, right? You can't get much more peak than that. They're crossing over Emmerdale with Coronation Street, and it was brilliant.

Carianne: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Laurie: We had the domestic abuse storylines with Becky Swain and Lisa Swain and Todd and Theo. There was so much stuff and there is so much stuff going on. The storylines that have come over from the last year into this year. It's just it's ri I think I've said this to you before. It's a shame that is it the the soap awards, the main soap awards have been cancelled this year because they would have they would have just absolutely, you know, run away with all the awards.

Carianne: Yeah

Laurie: 'cause they've just both been great. but yeah, there's there's been like I said before, there's been years where they're all the soaps are just really hitting it out of the park and really sort of like trying to one up each other with what they're doing and how they're doing it. and other years are a bit it's a bit quieter, a bit tamer. but the yeah, the easiest one for me at the moment.

Carianne: Yeah. There's nothing wrong with a healthy bit of competition. It's there between soaps, trying to outdo each other. It makes it really good fun for the audience.

Laurie: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So yeah, I've I pl I' plumbed for the easy option and said this last year going into this year. What about you?

Carianne: I have plumped for 1986. So 1986 was the year that EastEnders started. It was that Christmas episode with Den and Angie. We had Colin and Barry's gay romance in the square. We had Arthur's breakdown. Neighbours also started in the UK that year. And then Emmerdale was getting a reputation for like really heavy emotional storylines in that year. viewers, you know. People take the piss out of people who say, I'm gonna write to them, I'm gonna write to them and tell them I'm not happy. Viewers actively wrote to the newspapers in 1986 complaining that show was too depressing because of a string of unhappy storylines, cheating funerals. And they actually wrote to the newspapers about it. So anybody that says we're unhinged because we moan about stuff on X or wherever, get a grip.

Laurie: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Carianne: These people are writing to the Daily Telegraph.

Laurie: Yeah. And point of view. Do you remember point of view?

Carianne: my God, yeah, points of view. Yeah, gosh. Also, Eric Pollard arrived in Emmerdale, which means he's also celebrating 40 years on the show. We had the Barlow-Baldwin feud. Mike ended up marrying Susan, Ken's daughter. There was a lot of stuff about that. Sally arrived, Sally who was to become Sally Webster. Alan Bradley arrived and started that storyline, the emotional torment storyline that ended up.

Laurie: Mm. Why? Hmm.

Carianne: with him under a tram. And then at Brookside there was the siege at number seven. I must have watched all of these because I was definitely in my soap watching era at that point. I don't remember barely any of them.

Laurie: Well

Carianne: Yeah, yeah, Throwback Thursday, that's Throwback Thursday. That's our little kind of, dip into the past. And we'll be back tomorrow to talk about Funny Friday. So we'll see you all then, folks.

Laurie: Bye.