As soaps become more sexually explicit they're also pushing the boundaries over violence. But are viewers being turned off by their ever more ludicrous storylines?

Another week, another murder. Being a character in a soap is getting more dangerous than being a soldier in the front line. Coronation Street was once a cosy, quaint backwater somewhere near Manchester. Now the cobbles are running with blood, making Jack the Ripper's Whitechapel look like the Garden of Eden. Albert Square has always been a bit rough, but these days it's bloodier than Fred Elliot's butcher's shop.

The drive for higher ratings has forced soaps to become more violent more often. Once it was love triangles or unwanted pregnancies that generated the biggest drama, now it's serial killers and hit men.

Last week BBC1's EastEnders hosted the double demise of Dirty Den, clobbered to death by his wife, and gangster Andy Hunter, pushed off a motorway bridge by a rival criminal. Both died in a single episode.

When Dirty Den was killed (allegedly) the first time, it was all so discreetly done. A gun poking out of a bunch of daffodils fired in his direction and we heard the sound of a body hitting the water. This time we witnessed Den hit not once, but twice on the head with a metal doorstop. It was as graphic as the producers could hope to get away with before the 9pm watershed.

Next week Street viewers will see young Katy Harris lose her rag and bash her father over the head with a wrench after they argue in the garage late at night. Ena Sharples never had anything like that to gossip about in the Snug in the old days.

Besides, it hardly seems five minutes since Weatherfield was being terrorised by serial killer Richard Hillman who, you may recall, bashed both Emily and Maxine with an iron bar. Only one lived to tell the tale.

He'd previously pushed someone down the stairs and buried his ex-wife in concrete. When discovery was imminent, he abducted his wife and children, including a baby, and put them in a car which he drove into a canal. You expect these sort of things to happen in detective dramas, not in soaps.

There's little doubt that just as soaps are getting more sexually explicit, they're constantly pushing the barriers over violence. At the same time, they're testing the patience of viewers with increasingly ludicrous storylines.

The number of murders per head in Weatherfield and Walford must be higher than anywhere else in the country. The crime wave is tsunami-size. The other big soap, ITV1's Emmerdale, remains relatively murder free compared to the others. These farming folk are happy to slaughter cows instead of humans. And we've recently learnt that mad Steph didn't kill her father's girlfriend as was feared. She only half-scared her to death.

Early evening violence does offend some viewers, even when makers are careful not to show victims being hit and fountains of spurting blood. The TV watchdog received 41 complaints after Richard Hillman's double whammy with Emily and Maxine.

The Street is, undoubtedly, a more violent place now. EastEnders, with its cockney criminal associations, has always been ripe for exploitation. With the imminent return of hard man Phil Mitchell, the Square should brace itself for more thuggery. He's the man who thumped the life out of young Jamie Mitchell after he interfered in his love life and has been known to wave a gun around like crowds wave flags on a royal visit.

Phil was also the victim of a shooting, as was Ian Beale when wife Cindy hired a hit man to solve her marriage problems. The Who Shot Phil Mitchell? storyline was a blatant attempt to emulate the US soap Dallas, which achieved record worldwide ratings with its Who Shot JR? plot.

The Mitchell brothers have always been loitering with the intent of becoming Walford's answer to the Krays. In their absence, writers introduced a different criminal element with Andy Hunter presiding over his crooked empire. Now he's been replaced by another Mr Big, Johnny Allen, and his henchmen.

This concentration of gangland activities at the expense of the Square's family relationships has been put forward as one reason for EastEnders' recent ratings slump. With a new producer in charge, the emphasis may well be switched away from a life of crime, and the focus redirected on the characters viewers know and love.

The Mitchells aren't the only undesirables who've lived in the Square. Smooth villain Steve Owen killed his clinging ex-girlfriend Saskia by bashing her on the head with an ashtray, proving once and for all that smoking is bad for your health.

Sometimes violence is a necessary part of the plot. When Little Mo thwacked abusive husband Trevor with an iron, you couldn't help feeling that he deserved everything he got after years of consistent physical and mental abuse of his wife.

Another equally terrible Trevor, namely Trevor Jordache, became one of soap's most famous murder victims in C4's now-defunct Brookside. He used to beat up his wife Mandy and sleep with his two daughters. The final straw came when he threatened to kill all three of them. Mandy stabbed him with a kitchen knife and they buried his body under the patio.

In the current audience-chasing climate, the violence is unlikely to abate. Murders, just like weddings and funerals, have taken their place as part of the soap ritual.

Published: 26/02/05