| The
British Soap Opera Cliche List Fairly
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If someone has a guilty secret, everyone they meet will allude to it in their conversations.
When a new male character is introduced, someone will fancy him.
People only get jobs in their immediate locality, i.e. within fifty yards of their front door.
When a character is very depressed and sitting at a bar, in the background there will be a table of four people, laughing and obviously very happy.
If two people share a secret, whenever they are in the same room they will give each other very obvious sideways glances.
Every, and I mean every, single plot development relies solely on the character involved being unable to get a sentence out in conversation which would immediately clarify the situation and prevent its escalation. Early on the character will attempt to tell someone but keep getting interrupted and then give up.
Whoever runs the local pub, no matter how unlikely, becomes a superb listener and confidant during a lock-in with a depressed member of the opposite sex. They will probably end up in bed.
No soap is ever recommissioned unless it promises to have a dyslexia storyline.
Soap opera kids are always members of the tiny percentage of British teenagers who get into trouble when they do drugs.
In fact, to extend the above point, no-one ever gets to take drugs and just have a good time, unlike the rest of the population.
Similarly, whilst everyone drinks, no-one ever gets drunk and just goes home. They always have to fall over and then embarrass everyone with a few incoherent accusations or hard hitting home truths.
The dyslexia theory can also be extended to shoplifting, truancy and lesbianism.
Every soap opera will have a "pantomime villain" character. They will be hated by everyone apart from one character who can see the nice guy trying to get out.
Talking or gossiping about a character results in that character immediately hoving into view, possibly within earshot.
People who run their own businesses never, ever, seem to do any actual work.
When two characters are in a stormy relationship and have fallen out, a third, much younger character will, in a very simplistic fashion, make one of them realise how much they love the other. This character will immediately attempt a reconciliation.
In order to voice a last-minute declaration of love, a character, assisted by a friend, will embark upon a frantic car journey to the airport/railway station. They will get stuck in a traffic jam. The character will get out of the car and hurdle a roadside barrier en route to their destination which is always conveniently nearby.
When going on holiday, soap characters can only travel in groups of eight or more. One character will refuse to come along, but at the last minute their partner will annoy them, resulting in a "why the hell not?" attitude.
Any holiday will result in at least one illicit affair, a declaration of homosexuality, an accident caused by drunken high-jinks and an under-age nightclub visit.
Any temporary foreign character in a soap opera will be a crude, one-dimensional stereotype of their nationality.
When two or more, usually female, characters decide to "REALLY LET THEIR HAIR DOWN TONIGHT" they always, but always, begin their night out in the local pub, before heading "up town" or "out west" to locations the viewer rarely sees.
When teens do dabble in drugs, their descent from casual use to hardline dependency is a startlingly rapid one. On Monday night, they're experimenting with a joint - by Friday, they're pawning their dead father's tools in order to buy crack.
Gangster type characters in soap operas are always attractive, witty, and use their exaggerated sarcastic laugher a great deal more than they ought.
Fires in soap operas are always roaring infernos capable of destroying a house, as opposed to a small, easily extinguishable flare-up. Gas cylinders are often nearby, and someone will always be killed - seldom a resident of the property in question.
No-one in the medical profession could ever be considered "normal". They'll be gay, obese or from Poland, but they won't be "normal". This includes vets.
The local pub attracts and appears attractive to clients from all age groups, social groups, cultural cohorts etc. This never, ever happens in real life - especially in supposedly working class communities.
In addition to the above, at any given time, day or night, the pub will contain a perfectly accurate cross-section of the community.
No commercial establishments ever appear in the community if they are the type which would be part of a nationally recognised chain. Therefore, to avoid advertising the likes of Nat West or inventing something like The Royal Bank of Hotton, residents of soap opera towns have to survive without vital services.
Marriages never last. Premature death is the only way to avoid divorce.
Similarly, pregnancies are always complicated.
If the parents are away and soap opera kids have a party, the police will end up there, or at the very least, the parents will find out.
Furthermore, no soap kid can ever indulge in anything considered "naughty", no matter how trivial or harmless, without being caught, reprimanded and made an example of. Also, the severity of the punishment usually far outweighs the crime.
If said party is being held by a relatively well behaved kid, the nastiest kid in the street will spike the punch resulting in good kid being sick and getting all the blame.
When male characters get drunk, they become maudlin and inevitably start to cry.
The music in nightclubs is always really, really quiet. When did you last have a nightclub conversation where you could make yourself heard without yelling in the other person's ear?
People visit their local pub extremely regularly - lunchtimes, finishing time at work, then later in the evening, every single day. Any normal person exhibiting this behaviour would be branded a problem drinker.
In soaps, a vastly disproportionate number of characters are restaurateurs/chefs - quite a skilled and specialist profession. Actually, the amount of people who own their own business of any kind is quite staggering.
Despite many people in soaps having pretty menial jobs (working in shops, or pubs) all characters seem to enjoy a disproportionately high standard of living.
Furthermore, characters who could be considered rich or well-off, for some reason choose to live in a property well below their means.
Nobody in a soap is short of money, unless it provides a suitable plot development; shoplifting, for example, or drug dealing. No one's ever 'just a bit skint'.
The only unemployed people in soaps are......Nick Cotton, basically.
Shops, takeaways, caffs etc etc are always staffed by leading characters in the soap. Walford/Emmerdale/Brookside/Weatherfield appear to be the only places in Britain where the corner shop isn't run by an Asian family who keep themselves to themselves.
When a self employed businessman (or woman) goes bust, they seem to be able to start up a new business doing something completely different, unhindered by non-transferable skills or British laws against directorships being held by bankrupted individuals.
Perhaps it's because these self employed types are always slightly dodgy. None of these businesses are ever run by completely scrupulous, honest people.
If a car is ever a central part of a storyline as opposed to a mere prop, it will either crash, get stolen or be a cut-and-shut.
No-one ever has a normal, mundane reason for leaving a soap town, e.g. a new job. They always leave to "start a new life" because of a series of personal disasters.
When a character is going through a bad time, e.g. depression etc, and is going for a walk in a preoccupied manner to give themselves a chance to think, they are frequently accosted by other characters who engage them in inane small talk which they are neither able nor willing to cope with.
Soap operas characters are absolutely obsessed with surprise parties and will throw one for anyone, regardless of how little they may know them. At said parties they will revel and get drunk as though it's the greatest night out they've ever had.
If a surprise birthday party is being organised by a character for their partner, then the partner will have already secretly arranged to celebrate their birthday alone with their partner at a really expensive, intimate restaurant.
No-one in a soap opera ever seems capable of handling anything bad that happens in their life. One "bad thing" sends a previously well-balanced, normal character spiraling into manic depression and suicidal tendencies.
In the real world, people have friends or relatives to stay. They stay for the weekend, maybe for the week and then go home. In soapland, your cousin will come to stay for a protracted visit, forge a relationship with one of your friends, get a job and never leave.
No soap character ever watches television unless it defines their character, e.g. they are unemployed or are having a nervous breakdown and watch quiz shows all day.
The percentage of pregnancies which result in the birth of a single, healthy baby are so low as to suggest that the land of soap operas has a health care system akin to the middle ages. Terminations, miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, twins, triplets and freaks are all astonishingly commonplace, but not normal, healthy babies. If you take away the number of healthy babies which survive a deformed twin, then the normality rating is even lower.
(Eastenders only) No-one owns a washing machine - not even Ian "Moneybags" Beale.
Local residents spend a great deal of time and money having lunch in the local pub/ cafe, even though they only live two doors away
(submitted by Keg).
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