THE yearly six-week break in the soap opera season is causing the usual widespread grumpiness among fans of popular drama.
Unlike football, which has been continuously on air since 1960, soap operas have a yearly hiatus during which actors and scriptwriters can recharge their batteries.
The break also allows soap fans to take an active role in actual forms of human discourse which do not involve repeatedly asking, ‘and what’s that supposed to mean?’ Without such a break, it is feared that soaps could degenerate into a frontal lobe-deadening grind of sturm und drang and joyless intrigue with no ultimate resolution.
Soap addict Emma Bradford said: “I hate this time of year. What am I going to watch? Celebrity Cash In The Attic? May The Best House Win? Wimbledon?
“Why don’t I just pull up a chair and watch the freezer defrost?”
Her 28-year-old boyfriend Stephen Malley said: “It’s like this every year – you’d think it was the end of the world, not the end of the soap season.
“Lord forbid she should pay some attention to me, for a change. Never mind Sharon or Zak’s feelings, what about my feelings?
“That said, I do like to watch soaps sometimes just to ogle their legs, even if I don’t understand what’s going on.”
Emmerdale fan Roy Hobbs said: “Football fans are completely ignorant about the basics of soap. They understood what was actually going on, they might enjoy it.
“Now they’re talking about winter soap breaks. I don’t think I could face Christmas without getting to watch a familiar character drop prematurely dead to the distant, ironic sounds of seasonal celebration in the pub.”
