2. Each British soap opera follows the same few
conventions, these conventions are what makes a soap
easily identifiable as a soap.
Convention 1: Open Narrative
• Something that makes soap operas individual, is that unless
they are being taken off air, there is never a time when all the
storylines will end. Therefore it is never ending, meaning
soaps have an open narrative.
3. Convention 2: Well known theme tune
• Each soap has it’s own original theme tune and intro
sequence which is linked only to their soap.
• This tune and the introduction sequence would have only
changed a small bit in the years the soap has been aired.
• This short tune rarely has any words on it.
• If someone were to listen to the tune, they should be able to
tell what soap it is from.
4. Convention 3: Large casts
• Soap tend to have large casts, to keep them verisimilitude to a
real community.
• As soap are open narrative, and don’t end, by having a large
cast it would give actors a break from filming.
• A large cast would also allow there to be more than one
storyline running at one time, which is needed for a soap.
• A large cast would allow there to be a large variety of
characters, once again making it more realistic to an actual
community.
5. Convention 4: Set around a small
central area
Soap are set around a small central area so that it is a realistic
community feel. Audiences then become familiar with the
area, the residents within, and it almost become as if it is an
existing place they know.
• For example:
• Eastenders is set around a Town Square
• Coronation Street is set down a street
• Hollyoaks is set around a further education college
6. Convention 5: Aim for verisimilitude
• As a rule, British soaps are realistic or, at least, aim for realism.
• British soaps tend to have characters that are working class,
ordinary people, which would possibly make the average
person want to watch it so they can relate to the characters.
• This is part of the reason why soap opera have their appeal as
it seems as if they are watching a real community like their
own.
7. Convention 6: Each episode ends on a
cliff-hanger
• As soaps are open narrative, they need something to keep
viewers tuning into the program, ending each episode with a
tense cliff-hanger brings audiences back as they have an urge
to see how the story continues and concludes.
• This also means that each episode tends to start with a ‘hook’
in which one or more of the narratives from a previous
episode are continued.
8. Convention 7: Always more than one
storyline being shown
• There are usually 4, 4 or even 5 storylines in progress at once
in any soap episode. We are never constantly just been shown
one, the soap switches between the stories, this helps keep
the audiences interested.
• Storylines can run for a very short amount of time, or the can
run for months or even years. In some cases storylines have
been left, then revisited years later, therefore attracting old
audiences members back to the soap.
