As Hayley breathes her last in a controversial episode of Coronation Street on Monday night, Caroline Lindsay looks at how soaps have dealt with difficult subjects over the years and how we reacted.
Hands up if you’ll be one of millions of viewers glued to Coronation Street on Monday night? Although actress Julie Hesmondhalgh said there was “an almost holy atmosphere” during the filming of her last scene, when her character Hayley Cropper who is suffering from terminal pancreatic cancer commits suicide by swallowing a cocktail of drugs, the storyline has sparked controversy.
The Samaritans, who provided advice for the scene, warned there was a risk of copycat suicides. However, Julie does not agree: “These decisions come from so deep inside yourself, it wouldn’t ever come from something like this. I don’t think this will make anyone think ‘oh, I want that’. It’s not hard to be in favour of it, people whose minds are extremely keen and alert but whose bodies have gone. I wouldn’t want to live in that pain and anguish or see my family and friends go through it. I’ve always really understood Hayley’s decision.”
The show’s producer, Stuart Blackburn, also defended the plot: “We’re not advocates for Hayley’s decision and her belief that she had a right to choose a time of her dying in any way, shape or form. Will it influence people? I don’t know. People may have the discussion and talk about it. We have a right to have that discussion.”
The soap opera originated on radio in the United States in the early 1930s, as short, domestic dramas sponsored by the manufacturers of soaps, medicines, foods and other household goods, hence the word “soap”.
Over the years soaps Coronation Street, Brookside, EastEnders, Emmerdale and River City have dealt with sensitive issues ranging from mental illness, abortion, cancer and AIDS to drug abuse and teenage sex. Back in 2011 Ofcom was flooded with complaints after Emmerdale decided to air a storyline involving euthanasia before the 9pm watershed. A spokesman for anti-euthanasia campaign Care Not Killing said: “This programme should not have been before the watershed. For ITV to show it as they did, was inappropriate and wrong. We’re very concerned about the way assisted suicide can be shown in drama.”
Things were made worse by actor Marc Silcock, who played Jackson, the character who had asked to die, admitted the plan was to make the death scenes “as horrific as possible”: “We ensured it wasn’t beautiful it is horrific, because it’s a horrific thing. We didn’t want to glorify it for one second.” Soap bosses defended the storyline, insisting: “99% of the response we have had from viewers has been overwhelmingly positive.”
In 2001 the scenes depicting the rape of Toyah Battersby in Coronation Street were so graphic that the actor portraying her attacker, Jack Deam, said he was traumatised for months afterwards. Actress Georgia Taylor who played Toyah, said the scenes could help girls facing the same horror in their lives to speak out and seek help, while a spokesman added: “Rape is obviously a very emotive subject to tackle in a soap opera and we have gone to great lengths to ensure that the storyline is handled sensitively.” It caused controversy on the set, with many former stars feeling it was too distressing to show and not in line with the soap’s tradition.
Liverpudlian soap Brookside, which ran from 1982 to 2003, was famous for its hard-hitting story lines addressing difficult subjects and issues, including the rape of Sheila Grant, the first pre-watershed lesbian kiss on British television, incest and murder.
The show’s creator, Phil Redmond, said: “I wanted to just occasionally throw up a debate, to say this is something we should all be thinking about and be debating. Drama that leaves you at the end sometimes feeling slightly uncomfortable or thinking ‘we should do something about that’, that’s the kind of area I was always interested in.”
Hollyoaks too has caused Ofcom more than a few headaches over the years with plots including gay rape, anorexia and pushing someone under a moving train. Referring to the train storyline, Ofcom ruled that the scene had the “potential to distress younger viewers as well as raise concerns about the level of violence amongst parents watching with their children regardless of the editorial context presented or the signposting provided”. Actor Emmett J Scanlan shot back: “Four-year-olds should be watching Bob the Builder, not Hollyoaks. This is about parenting, not lobotomising creativity.”
Another shocking Hollyoaks storyline, involving two of the soap’s female characters admitting to having killed a toddler when they were 12, was pulled just days before transmission. With disturbing parallels with the 1993 killing of Jamie Bulger, Jamie’s mother made her anger public that Hollyoaks was planning to air the scenes.
Over the years we have been glued to memorable traumas and dramas, including Janine’s prostitution in EastEnders, Sarah Platt’s teen pregnancy in Corrie and Mark Fowler’s battle with AIDS. More recently, at the end of last year, River City character Edward Cooper attempted (unsuccessfully) to take his own life after being diagnosed with motor neurone disease.
When Emmerdale decided to feature a plane crash on the fifth anniversary of the Lockerbie bombing, it drew thousands of complaints but gave the show its highest-ever viewing figures of 18 million.
When paedophile Tony started grooming a young teenager in EastEnders in 2009, the soap received twice as many complaints as all other BBC programmes that year and TV critics slated it for being shown pre-watershed.
Other plots have been so thoroughly panned that they have been ‘resolved’ much sooner than planned the baby-swapping storyline in EastEnders being a prime example. More than 13,000 viewers complained to the BBC about the plot and over 1,000 to Ofcom, and the furore resulted in actress Samanatha Womack leaving the show.
Controversial episodes are backed up by an offer of support in the closing credits; the BBC, for example, supplies numerous, helpful contact details for subjects ranging from abuse, drink and drugs and health to grief and loss and sex.
Senior BBC drama executive John Yorke has defended adult storylines in TV soaps, saying storylines that tackle difficult subjects are justified, provided you get the facts rights and do not cause offence by unduly sensationalising them. He added: “They are an invaluable method of teaching children about the world. If you ringfence soaps and say they are not a place for adult issues, removing them, it would be like making children’s programmes. It would be like taking the wolf out of Little Red Riding Hood.”