Like it or not, soap is now an ingredient of every major TV channel. Former Coronation Street boss David Liddiment explains the rise of the TV genre in a C4 documentary to be shown on Saturday night. Steve Pratt reports.

DAVID Liddiment has always had an affection for soaps. As executive producer of Coronation Street for five years, he had first hand experience of the genre that has come to dominate the British TV schedules. So who better to make a documentary about the subject, How Soaps Changed The World?

His qualifications include holding top jobs at the BBC, ITV, and in the independent sector. He's worked on some of the nation's most popular and critically acclaimed shows, and delivered the prestigious McTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh TV Festival. He's worked across all genres, and knows the industry backwards.

"I've always been fascinated by the nature of an ongoing serial," he explains. "Some of the most stimulating and interesting experiences of my working life have been either chairing or sitting in on story conferences, which are the engines of soaps, where the writers gather every few weeks to invent storylines.

"In this film, we actually got one of the rare opportunities to film at the Coronation Street story conference, which was a real privilege."

He was a fan long before he joined the TV industry, growing up in Huddersfield on a street of terraced houses rather like Coronation Street.

Liddiment recalls, when he was 11, that Pat Phoenix, who played Elsie Tanner, and Philip Lowrie, who played her son Dennis, came to open a launderette in the town. "It virtually closed the town centre, because 3,000 people came out to see them in the flesh," he says.

"Soap stardom is by no means a modern phenomenon. The stars of Coronation Street in the 1960s were actually superstars compared to where we are today.

"There's extraordinary footage of four of the Street stars, including Pat, going to Australia, where the soap was very successful. They literally had the motorcade, and thousands of people at the airport to greet them. It was like Beatlemania before The Beatles."

He feels the genre caught the popular imagination because it was unique for 1960. Not only was in on twice a week, every week, but reflected the everyday lives of ordinary people. "The British mass audience could see some perspective of themselves on screen every week. It was quite phenomenal, like nothing else that had been on TV, and it took off in the most spectacular way," he says.

"That's been the keystone of British soaps ever since, their ordinariness and lack of glamour. They're so successful here because they're rooted in real life, and about ordinary people.

"When you look at the big American soaps, like Dallas and Dynasty, these were glamorous, slightly unreal worlds. Our soaps are more real, grittier, and more relevant. Also, British soaps, particularly Coronation Street, have great comedy in them."

Despite that, he acknowledges that many TV executives themselves were wary of soaps. The BBC struggled with the genre, not quite persuading itself that it was "proper television".

It wasn't until the early 1980s, and pressure on the institution from Mrs Thatcher to prove they had strong popular support, that it became imperative for them to have something as successful and sustainable as Coronation Street was for ITV. But he warns against TV companies trying to saturate the market with soaps because it puts huge pressure on the producers to maintain the quality viewers expect. He thinks the schedules full up in terms of episodes of soaps.

As for his favourite soap, Liddiment enjoys "a special relationship" with the Street because he's watched it from the beginning, comes from the North and has an emotional attachment through producing the series.

"On a professional basis, I think EastEnders has been incredibly influential, and it's a great show," he says. "Brookside affected the way EastEnders looked, and in turn that affected the way Coronation Street rebuilt itself in the late 1980s. There's things to be admired in all of them."

As for his favourite moments, he confesses that, like everybody else, he got caught up in the Den-Angie relationship and the "who's the father of Michelle's baby" story on EastEnders.

"In Coronation Street, although it received a lot of criticism, the way the story about Tracy's pregnancy unravelled, and the complex way it touched so many characters, that was very well done."

That story is not one from the black-and-white Coronation Street of Liddiment's childhood, or even from his days at the show's helm. It's up-to-date, indicating that, despite his enormous workload, he still watches the soaps.

"I do try and stay in touch with them. Not all of them, all the time - there are now simply too many episodes to keep up with. But they're a phenomenon in British TV, they've been the most-watched TV shows for so long it's extraordinary. There's no doubt they provide huge entertainment and enjoyment for a large number of people."

* How Soaps Changed the World: Saturday, C4, 9.50pm.

Published: 15/07/2004