the drama! the drama!

So while I'm resting up and making sure I get better, I've also been taking daily trips to a favorite pub of mine, the Rovers Return. I'll admit, I wasn't always a fan of Coronation Street, but now that I have the time to commit to this relationship, I'm finding it quite rewarding. I'm not at the point yet where I know everyone's name, or who's done what to whom, but I've been watching for a few weeks now, and I find it's the most realistic soap opera I've ever watched. However, since I know "reality" (that pesky bugger) isn't really why people watch soaps, I should mention as well that like Days or Passions, Corrie has a high quantity of the following:

1. Catfights.
2. Convoluted relationships.
3. Interwoven story lines.
4. Cute people in nice clothes.

However, where it differs from the daytime "stories" is in the following:

1. The sets look at least a little realistic, since they're on a great big set in England.
2. There are some people who are "normal"--as in, old, or fat, or ugly, or just plain different from the tall, white, thin norm on other soaps.
3. The stories aren't just to do with sex, backstabbing, and betrayal. Yes, there's a lot of that, too, but there is also the kid who is pretending he was bullied at school so that he can stay home and do nothing, the baker whose business is going under and whose daughter tries to save it, and the grandfather who has to move, again, to name only a few of the ones I've seen since I started watching.
   

Marlo and I have been watching it together and it's great fun to exclaim to each other about the actions of Charlie Stubb (am I spelling that right, Tracy?) and the snotty kid David. And then there's the haunting strains of its theme music. I always associated this show with older women from Cape Breton, who know way too much about the storylines and gossip the same way about their hometown as they do about the show--which is to say, copiously. And I always thought, "I will never end up like them, enraptured by the goings-on of a fake British community, how plebeian!" But I guess the lesson here is, never say never. And, never break into your ex-boyfriend's flat to make sure his new girlfriend's 2-year-old daughter isn't in danger, because it will come back to bite you in the end. Because your ex-boyfriend is a psycho, didn't you learn that the first time?

As Kathy Kerr used to say (and probably still does, I'm just not there to hear it), when we'd catch an episode of Corrie together, in a voice that sounded like it had heard it all, "The drama, the drama!"

Also, I have a sneaking suspicion the CBC shows Corrie some episodes behind the BBC. Does anyone know if that's true or not?

So, until the day when I make it over to England and take a tour on the set lot, I'll have to settle for watching Corrie, 7 PM on the good old Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and talking about it with "you lot". You get extra points for using British-isms. And you know I'm serious when I say points--I follow through with prizes!