Families [14/01/91]
A tale of two families.
Lives are turned upside down by the reappearance of Mike Thompson - the man who suddenly walked out on his family and business to find his long-lost love in Australia. In this episode of Families, Sue welcomes her husband back to the UK, but what has she been up to with John, her brother-in-law? Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, tensions are running high with young couple Chris and Corinne and her pregnancy announcement.
After the failure of the soap Albion Market in 1986, Granada Television made another attempt to create a successful daytime soap to rival popular Aussie imports Neighbours and Home and Away. Families was created by writer Kay Mellor, who later produced popular television dramas Band of Gold (1995-97), Fat Friends (2000-05 and The Syndicate (2012-21). It was a daytime, twice weekly soap set in the UK and Australia. Each episode switched between the two locations. Reportedly costing Granada £3 million to produce, exterior scenes were filmed on location in Australia, and interior scenes were filmed in Manchester. The soap tackled a number of controversial storylines in its daytime slot, including incest, drugs and suicide. The programme ended in 1993.
Diana receives shocking news in Australia, while John confronts Mike.
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TV Soap: Selection Box
Continuing drama on the small screen: explore how TV soap has changed over the decades.
The UK is a nation of soap addicts, with programmes commanding audiences of millions every week. Since they first appeared on British television in the 1950s, British soaps have given us hundreds of memorably distinctive characters in many different settings. But while they take many forms, there are some common characteristics.
Where in the US soaps tend to favour glamour and frothy fantasy, here they typically centre on relatable communities and families and reflect life in (usually) contemporary Britain, exploring sometimes thorny social issues and attitudes to class, race, gender, sexuality and more. While originally steeped in real-life domestic conflict, soap marched into the new millennium with hard-hitting storylines, sensationalist plots and issue-driven narratives highlighting pressing matters of the day.
This collection showcases a variety of soaps; rural or urban, north or south and everything in between. Some were shortlived and are much missed, while others are longstanding favourites embedded in our collective memory.
So settle in and prepare for drama!
24 videos in this collection
1
2
General Hospital [19/10/72]
3
Garnock Way [01/04/76]
4
Emmerdale Farm [05/04/76]
5
A Stitch in Time
6
Coronation Street [14/11/77]
7
Crossroads (Promotion)
8
Pat Phoenix &Tony Booth (Live from Two)
9
Mary Whitehouse Reacts to Brookside Scenes
10
Emmerdale Farm [14/05/85]
11
Coronation Street[01/11/1961]
12
Crossroads [23/05/85]
13
Albion Market
14
Coronation Street [13/08/86]
15
Yorkshire Television
16
Brookside [13/04/87]
17
Families [14/01/91]
18
Family Pride [08/09/91]
19
Emmerdale [10/10/91]
20
Coronation Street [06/07/92]
21
Sus
22
Machair
23
Sus
24