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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Spells &amp; Karma" data-source="post: 380159" data-attributes="member: 23">Episodes 211 - 225 6 November - 24 December 1984 continued... How refreshing it is seeing characters putting up their Christmas decorations less than a week before Christmas. In fact there was barely a mention of the season until mid-December. Having been into some shops recently, one could be forgiven for thinking Christmas now starts on All Saints’ Day. I think the first noticeable sign of the silly season was when Heather stayed in a hotel that had some tinsel in the dining room. Heather’s been travelling round the country recently, and we’ve travelled with her which has been nice. I love how Brookie can do this kind of location work without a sense of event. People travel for work and it’s frequently quite humdrum, going from railway station to office suite to hotel interior, and that’s how it’s been. Someone unfamiliar with the UK could be forgiven for thinking the scenes were all filmed locally**, because the temptation to do the familiar touristy iconography has been more or less avoided. Still, we’ve seen New Street station in Birmingham, and - most exciting of all - Granada Studios. Heather’s doctor love interest was aiming to go inside to get souvenirs for his Corrie-mad friends. Heather looked askance at him as though she’d either never heard of it or didn’t care for it, but maintained a diplomatic silence. The Hilary Kingsley book says The Powers That Be at Corrie took a very dim view of Brookie filming its studios and acknowledging it as fictitious. Despite Heather’s less-than-interested reaction (and, let’s face it, Heather simply wouldn’t sit down to watch a soap opera at 7:30pm. If she wasn’t thinking about dinner or commuting she’d probably still have her head in an accounts book), it was spoken about favourably. To me, it felt like a respectful acknowledgement of the series whose early spirit greatly influenced Brookside, as the older series celebrated a milestone. The 24th anniversary was even specifically mentioned. It’s a bit like EastEnders’ Dot Cotton preparing to watch Corrie’s anniversary episode some 26 years later. Following his wife’s death, Ralph seems to have become a permanent fixture at the bungalow. Even though I remember him as part of the fabric of the series when I watched it back in the day, I’m unsure how to feel about Ralph. As a guest in someone else’s home, I don’t feel we’re seeing the true him, and this makes him feel somehow artificial. It possibly doesn’t help that Ray Dunbobbin has that sing-song Ringo Starr kind of drone to his speech patterns. I got used to it with Gizzmo, but with Ralph it feels like another layer of one-dimensionality. I’m curious what I make of him as the series evolves and he becomes even more entrenched. His “thing” seems to be that he’s insufferably nice and helpful. But there’s also this sly undercurrent where he colludes with Edna behind Harry’s back, and with Harry behind Edna. And on that note, Edna’s child-woman bit continues to frustrate. Thankfully, this characteristic has been acknowledged, and I found myself inwardly cheering when both Kevin and Harry refused to let her off the hook for her gambling addiction because she made her sad face. Kevin has now announced that he’s moving down South, and I feel there must be a soapy reason for this. With the benefit of hindsight, I suppose it’s done to give Ralph even more of a reason to stick around. Ah well, mine’s not to reason why. A favourite Harry scene was accepting a proffered joint from Paul Collins while at the same time pretending to be offended by it. Not only this, once he found out that Paul had been given a heap of goodies from prospective tenders at the factory (not bribery, he insisted as he enjoyed them and passed them round), it took Harry all of thirty seconds to drop unsubtle hints that a poor pensioner couldn’t afford to buy Scotch. And as Paul left to get a bottle for him, Harry snatched the joint from Paul’s arms. The younger cast have been less well-represented in this batch of episodes. Gordon and Lucy are gone, as is Barry. Karen and Damon are seen only infrequently of late. Sandra, Pat and Kate float about without actually having plots of their own (Sandra’s got an ex-husband threatening to appear. Other than that, Chirpy Cockney*** Pat is making Terry jealous by spending time with Michelle and Kate saved the day by whipping up a vegetarian meal when Annabelle realised her clients didn’t eat meat). Like Samson, Terry’s strength continues to be sapped by his crew cut (which he hates). The short do improves his appearance no end, but if it stops him moaning I’ll take the return of the bubble perm. And the Christmas Eve 1984 episode saw the debut of Brookie’s legendary “cast and crew stand on the Close and wave as the entire year’s production team is credited on-screen. Wonderful stuff.** Even so, I suspect there is a little cheating here and there. Some of Heather’s scenes in one of her distant locales took place in an office suite with distinctive Chesterfield leather look inserts in the doors. During the same office, Bobby had a confab in a Liverpool office which happened to have exactly the same doors. *** Was Pat’s inclusion in the ensemble a way of pipping EastEnders to the post, I find myself wondering? Yes, he arrived waaaaay ahead of that series, but I seem to remember Enders had a very long pre-production process during which there was a lot of buzz and media hype about the Beeb’s first such “proper” soap.</blockquote>

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