COVID-19 AND SOAP OPERA BY WILL STANFORD ABBISS

In New Zealand, where I’m lucky enough to have been stranded due to the pandemic, we’ve become accustomed to 1pm press briefings, where COVID-19 case numbers and any changes to public health measures are announced. In September, I turned on TVNZ 1 for the anticipated announcement that most of New Zealand would be returning to level 1 restrictions. However, this press conference – announcing something of a foregone conclusion at this stage – was not shown on TVNZ’s linear channels; instead I encountered an episode of the UK soap opera Emmerdale. What’s more, it was an Easter episode.

For New Zealand’s regular Emmerdale viewers, of which I am not one, there is a familiar dissonance to this mistimed holiday, with episodes broadcast months after their UK showing. However, it was even more discomfiting to see a traditional Easter 2020, built around a village-wide egg hunt, when such events were of course unable to take place in the real world. It also reminded me of all the once-familiar aspects (scenes with more than four people, physical contact, on-screen children) that I had by this point got used to not seeing in my daily Neighbours viewing.

Soap opera production has been forced to change considerably in the past year, but the genre has also asserted its pioneering influence regarding economy and adaptability. They are at the front line of COVID-19 response in screen production, their continuous production schedules having required near-immediate changes to working practices. Narratively, the pandemic quickly became an event far too big to be summarised by a hastily filmed insert, as British soaps often do for sporting events and elections.

While Neighbours was in one respect lucky to complete its major 35^th anniversary week before the virus emerged (and before Channel 5 in the UK hastily cut down its episodes broadcast per week, creating a deficit from which it still has not recovered), it was also unlucky that the broadcast of this celebration – which focused around mass community gatherings and international holiday prizes – came in the week when just such activities ceased around the world. While circumstances such as this and Emmerdale’s Easter were unfortunate, they could not be avoided, and nor could the need to at least briefly cease filming. Upon their return, however, the soaps faced the narrative decision of whether to stay in their parallel, non-COVID world or somehow belatedly incorporate the pandemic into their storylines.

Thanks in part to the lack of a strict lockdown in Australia, in 2020 Neighbours became a pioneer for screen production during a pandemic. With only minor disruption to its filming schedule, the soap transitioned from this to an era of conspicuously absent physical contact, using measures such as splitting cast and crew into groups, camera trickery and deploying production staff as extras. This allowed Neighbours to continue airing five days a week throughout the pandemic.

Neighbours’ COVID innovations also achieved worldwide attention, as reported in the New York Times; the soap is held up as an indication of how the screen industry will look for the foreseeable future, in the global context of the economic damage caused by lockdowns. The comments of executive producer Jason Herbison also show the narrative approach taken to the virus in Neighbours: namely, not to incorporate it into storylines to preserve the show’s “escapism”. It is this may have caused long-term difficulties for Neighbours. Now we have occasional moments where, for instance, Susan Kennedy underlines the comedy of a scene with the elaborate application of hand sanitiser, and in recent months COVID warning signs outside Erinsborough Hospital. The coronavirus has still never been mentioned in dialogue, however, so these peripheral elements feel more out of place within the soapworld than familiar to the viewer’s reality.

While Neighbours was pioneering its new production model in Australia, in the UK EastEnders faced a very different situation. For a soap opera, the appeal of which is built upon its consistent screen presence, going off-air is the nightmare scenario – but EastEnders had no option but to do so between June and September. However, this disaster created a path through the narrative issues that Neighbours had faced. EastEnders was able to use its off-screen months as a lockdown period, allowing episodes upon its return to reflect a society living amidst a pandemic. Since resuming its broadcast, the soap has shown the impact of lockdown upon its characters’ relationships, even depicting two regular characters as having contracted the virus.

This also allows some social distancing to be dictated by both narrative and production, though of course scenes between fictional families and household contacts still require masking. EastEnders has adopted a technological approach to filming, minimising proximity between actors. They’ve also been keen to promote their use of Perspex screens, though in practice this device isn’t as inconspicuous as media reporting would suggest.

One of EastEnders’ most notable successes since returning to production came through the character of Chantelle, who was murdered by her husband at the culmination of a domestic abuse storyline shortly after the series returned. This story reflects the horrific situations many women found themselves in during lockdown – although the level of coincidence at play should be noted, as Chantelle’s death was planned long before the coronavirus struck. Nevertheless, this storyline demonstrates EastEnders’ capacity to reflect the social impact of the pandemic through issue-led narratives, which have always been a key part of the soap.

While EastEnders has been able to progress into a mid-COVID era through these means, Neighbours finds itself stuck in its virus-free world. Without a break in production or narrative, it is hard to see how it can ever reconcile itself with its viewers’ experiences of the last year. But does that matter?

Neighbours’ purpose has always been to depict an optimistic and literally sunnier world. And its UK audience is vital to its survival; this was shown by its near-cancellation in 2017, due to the UK’s Channel 5’s reluctance to continue broadcasting the soap. Film Victoria’s role in the eventual rescue deal indicates the importance of Neighbours to the Australian industry, while UK support is required to realise its benefit.

In recent years, Neighbours has evolved its escapist function beyond the socio-cultural hegemonies that have restricted it in the past. It has adopted the mantra ‘everyone is welcome on Ramsay Street’, established for the production’s involvement in Mardi Gras 2019, while incorporating more diverse characters and cast members (in terms of race, sexuality, gender and ability) than ever before. Neighbours in 2020 presents an aspirational society, one of acceptance and compassion, of hope through adversity – and no life-threatening viruses. It presents the image of the world we want to return to.

Of course, the differing public health circumstances in the UK and Australia continues to impact the management of the coronavirus in their screen production sectors. Neighbours has now quietly reintroduced physical contact (although still with no kissing); despite the lack of acknowledgement, the summer promotional video above appears to be a celebration of this development just prior to its introduction on-screen. EastEnders, meanwhile, has been unable to incorporate the subsequent UK lockdowns into its narrative, mitigating its social realist function. Perhaps, after all, escapism is the most resilient strategy in such uncertain times.

 

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Will Stanford Abbiss recently completed his doctoral study at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. His research focuses on representations of nationhood and identity in long-form television drama, including the status of public service television in the twenty-first century. His work has been published in Television & New Media and the Journal of British Cinema and Television, with forthcoming publications due to appear in the Moments in Television book series (Manchester University Press) and Critical Studies in Television.