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From This is Derbyshire
14 October 2005
Coming clean about life in the soaps
I greeted Derby Playhouse's announcement of a play about soap operas with supreme indifference.
The only soap I'm interested in is the one that sits in my sink. I'd sooner gaze at bathroom tiling than watch any episode of Neighbours, Eastenders or Emmerdale.
However, I instantly warmed to this play (Serial Killers) when I learnt this was a wickedly humorous comedy looking at "the absurdities of life in an Australian soap".
With behind-the-scenes shenanigans revealed by actual soap writer James Griffin, it has the potential to be as pointed and amusing as the 1991 movie Soapdish, starring Sally Field and Kevin Kline, which hilariously bares the giant egos and rampant libidos of a soap opera cast.
There will be similar exposition in Serial Killers, although this drama takes more satirical slices out of the writers than the actors.
The play opens in the writer's room of hospital soap - St Celia's. According to the author's notes, four scriptwriters are "savouring the task before them".
They are ready to kill off Andrew Lomas, the soap's long-standing heartthrob.
"So, we have a tender death scene, a few gurgled words, a last piece of over-acting??? But the important thing is - he is dead," declares one character.
Series producer Sally is unsure about this script move. When reminded that she likes firing people, she replies: "Normally, yes. But this is Andrew. Little Andy. The last of the originals."
She then reminds chief writer Pauline: "It's not that easy. It's not like??? writing words on a piece of paper. Things don't happen round here just because you say so."
However, the writers insist on killing off Andrew, leading the star to take matters into his own hands???
Pauline and Sally are played by Rebecca Hobbs and Julianne White, both antipodean stage actors who have done time in soaps, exactly like the five other cast members. Both speak of the biting accuracy of James Griffin's depiction. Rebecca has winced even more in recognition because not only did she spend 18 months on Shortland Street - the very soap Griffin wrote and used as inspiration - but also she's a scriptwriter herself.
"Yes, I've had experience of the writer's 'Table of Pain' as it's called in the play," says Rebecca. "I've recently been storylining for Sky One's The Dream Team and there we call it the 'Room of Death', because you do have the power to kill someone off.
"Also, soap viewers in the audience will find that the actors have far less say and control than they think."
From my reading of the play, the scriptwriters seem to also have contempt for the cast.
Rebecca nods in agreement: "These writers are clever, witty people but they've lost touch with life in a sense that they don't notice how harsh and cruel their words are.
"For instance, we refer to the actors as 'pretty fish'??? and we're the ones who run the aquarium."
"Actually, I think we're probably the sharks," smiles Julianne, who has spent a career in a lather of soaps, starting with Young Doctors then progressing through Waterloo Station, Prime Time and A Country Practice before becoming a semi-regular on Brookside as lawyer Sarah Towns.
Even though Serial Killers has a stab at soap actors, you won't hear Julianne joining in.
"Young Doctors was a fantastic apprenticeship," she affirms. "You gain experience quickly in having lots of lines and scenes."
"You get used to having a camera constantly on you and shooting fast," adds Rebecca. "You lose your tension and learn the technical alphabet."
So when they come to perform their lines and scenes under the stage lights, what kind of play can we expect?
"It has fun with soaps but there's an underbelly of seriousness and lots of truths," says Julianne. "It's also very entertaining."
"It's fascinating with some great voyeuristic moments," says Rebecca. "It's very theatrical, too.
" In fact, as a piece of theatre, I think it's a tour-de-force." | | |