We only watch one soap opera: Neighbours. We have an Australian friend (as well as many English ones) who mock(s) us for this. Indeed, fairly recently, she told us she was having to explain to some friends of hers about us watching it – and justified it by saying that we were English. Her friends, for the record, accepted this as a full and complete explanation.
On behalf of all those 63.5 million people who are English and do not watch Neighbours because it is rubbish, I should like to go on record and state that a) we know only about 1.5 million people watch it even in the UK and b) we know exactly how poor it is.
What people are failing to understand is that we watch Neighbours not because we are British but because we know it is apalling. It is mind-sapping nonsense. I don’t think a day goes by when we don’t either shout at the television, slap ourselves in our foreheads or rewind to see some of the incredibly poor acting by the extras who aren't allowed to speak (and of course the main cast members also). It is perfect television for when we are cooking and/or marking stuff. It is the first thing we watch at about 7pm every week night.
To well and truly rest my case, here is the information that our Sky Plus box had tagged today’s episode with:
“Libby is furious when someone takes her parking space.”
That, ladies and gentlemen, is just the right level of drama I want to see in the “lives” of my fictional soapy friends.
2 comments:
The perception amongst Australians that only the English watch Neighbours is admittedly held over from a time when, well, only the English watched Neighbours. Now that it's still going after all these years, and clearly not as popular as it used to be over there, I can only conclude that many Australians also watch it. And having watched two entire episodes in the past month I can agree that there is something oddly compelling about the bad acting and inane storylines. My only concern is that you'll be disappointed with the "real" Australia when you get here and discover that we're nowhere near as interesting as we seem on Neighbours!
Similarly, if you were to watch our Eastenders or Corrie, you might be disappointed to find out we're not nearly as depressing in real life.
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