TV

Great LezBritain: An Overview of Lesbians in British Soap Opera

“Great LezBritian” is a fortnightly stroll through the very best of British lesbo-centric entertainment and culture. Plus there will be some jolly good interviews with the top ladies who are waving the flag for gay UK.

In the UK, the soap opera is a staunch institution, as British as a cup of tea. Indeed, a character in soap land calling for the kettle to be put on is regularly the opening gambit to many a lively plot.

The British soap was established when BBC Radio 4 broadcasted The Archers in 1951. Set in an imagined village, many of the storylines were not on the cusp of anything especially thrilling — the threatened closure of the local shop being an example. Over the past few years, the writers of the Archers have looked outside of the village pub window and tried to realign the storylines with the happenings of modern society. As a result, in 2006, characters Adam Macy and Ian Craig got hitched in soap’s first ever legal civil ceremony.

The right-wing media winced, and accused the BBC of betraying its listeners, and indeed many Brits could be found squirming on their leather upholstered chaise lounges. An insight into a cultural issue that Britain’s Sauvignon drinkers would rather ignore was forced upon them, and this is the biggest strength of the soap opera. They are a hefty vehicle when it comes to driving a reflection of society directly into people’s homes without their consent.

Unlike in the U.S, our flagship soap operas all have primetime viewing slots and are beaten in audience ratings only by Doctor Who and anything Simon Cowell turns his hand to. They are an important way of commenting on British culture, and as such, the Prime Minister will even mention a storyline to imply that he is in tune with the common people.

Therefore, in Britain, pressure is placed on soap executives to portray characters and develop plots that represent the different factions and the gritty issues of our society. Some of these storylines do knock on the door of absurdity, but you do have to suspend a certain amount of disbelief and view the action through the assumption that soap operas by definition must be dramatic so that they can survive several shows a week for over forty years.

But if soap operas do aim to hold a somewhat hazy mirror up to British society, then why have so few lesbians walked along their fictitious streets, villages and squares? And why can our soaps take on all encompassing stories of abuse, rape and cancer but seem unable to keep the lesbians that do turn up from packing their bags all too soon or discovering they are not in fact quite as lesbionic as we were led to believe.

So put the kettle on and reminisce as we recap some of the lesbian storylines that did once fill our soapy screens.

EMMERDALE— Zoë Tate (Leah Bracknell) 1993 — 2005

Zoë had been kicking about Emmerdale Farm since 1989 but her character was very much like Tracey on EastEnders — seen but rarely heard. This was until Emmerdale was given a shake and a stir and Zoë the lesbian emerged like a wonderful slap round the face to many a nervous homophobic viewer.

She told her husband Archie that she loveth the lady kind and became the first lesbian character on a British soap. As actress Leah Bracknell, who played Zoë Tate remarked, “It wasn’t really until Zoë came out as a lesbian that she got interesting … her character is something of social interest — it’s an issue you can’t neglect.”

Zoë went onto “marry” her long-term girl-friend Emma (Rachel Ambler) in 1996, but as soap land does not exist unless there are tears at bedtime, this relationship broke down when Zoë bedded Emma’s ex, Susie.

Zoë had several more dealings which were treated with the same kind of soap opera dusting that all relationships in soaps receive — whatever the gender — including affairs with the married kind, relationships with family friends and a liaison with a truck driver.

Her lowest moment was when she had a one-night stand with local mechanic Scott. But this was explained by her subsequent diagnosis as schizophrenic, and so it is forgivable that only during a moment of mental illness, did her eye waver from the ladies.

Actress Leah Bracknell left Emmerdale in 2005 and many waved a fond farewell to the longest running and possibly the best representation of a lesbian ever to grace British soap land. Emmerdale is still the only soap to allow its lesbian resident to exist without having to wear a sign around her neck that constantly reinforced her sexuality. Sometimes she was just having a drink, or working or visiting her brother. No other British soap opera has managed this since.

Considering their handling of Zoe, it was disappointing that in 2006, Emmerdale offered up such a cliché driven relationship between teenagers Debbie Dingle (Charley Webb) and Jasmine Thomas (Jenna Louise Coleman), which resulted in Jasmine becoming pregnant by Debbie’s evil dad Cain. Even though they did rekindle their relationship later on the show, the handling of the plot was a failed opportunity for Emmerdale to retain its lesbian crown.

BROOKSIDE — Beth Jordache (Anna Friel) 1994

By far, the most enduring lesbian moment on British television was when a teenaged Beth Jordache (Anna Friel) admitted she was a gay lady and began an affair with her best friend Margaret (Nicola Stephenson). The moment of eye-popping declaration was when Beth planted a kiss on Margaret in front of millions of viewers before the watershed in 1994.

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The 18-year old Anna Friel handled her new found lesbian icon status with ease declaring,”Women have always been attracted to women, it’s just that society has never allowed them to be seen… people may not watch the news, but they watch soaps.”

Unfortunately, the lovely Beth did not last for long on our screens. In another controversial storyline, Beth was given a life sentence for murdering and burying her abusive father Trevor Jordache under the patio in 1995.

In our minds, she settled into life on G Wing at Larkhall Prison very well. She was looked after by an older lady called Yvonne and was loved by a rather handsome governor who worked tirelessly to free her and they now live together happily in Surrey. In reality, our Beth was carelessly killed off with a hereditary heart disease while still in prison. We must have been blind with grief at this travesty because we have no recollection at all about what happened to Margaret. For a reason unknown the internet has deleted all footage and entries of Beth and Margaret beyond the fact that actress Nicola Stephensen left the soap in 1994. If anyone can remember, then let us know.

EASTENDERS — Binnie (Sophie Langham) and Della (Michelle Joseph) 1994-95

Binnie and Della was the first attempt by EastEnders to portray a lesbian couple. Della, the closeted half of the relationship arrived in Albert Square first, followed by Binnie, who arrived a few months later banging a metaphoric rainbow tambourine for all and sundry to see.

When Binnie had endured enough of Della’s homo-guising ways she finally kissed her in front of two shocked Albert Square heavy-weight matriarchs Pauline Fowler and Pat Evans.

Binnie and Della were an attractive and vibrant couple — for about five minutes — before the writers realized they didn’t know what to do with them as soon as they were “out.” They existed only to have a bicker-filled relationship until they were written out and left together to have a new life in Spain.

Real-life lesbian Pam St. Clement, who plays Pat, summed the whole sorry plotline up when she said later: “Having given themselves the brief, they didn’t know what the f–k to do with it.”

FAMILY AFFAIRS — Holly Hart (Samantha Huggett) and Suzie Ross (Tina Landini) 1997-99

Family Affairs was one of the flagship programs launched on Channel 5’s first night. It never achieved high ratings, but for a while was acclaimed for featuring a higher density of gay and lesbian characters than any other soap.

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The first of these relationships was between virginal 24-year old law student Holly and bisexual Suzie, who had lovely toned arms. The pre-coming out conversations between them mainly consisted of: “You’re my new best, best friend, I’m so lucky that you’re my best, best friend, I love our friendship so much and just want to be with you all the time,” which is quite a predictable start to many coming-of-age story arcs. However, it was played with an alluring bit of sexual chemistry that hadn’t really existed with any other lesbian couples in soap before.

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All looked good when Holly turned down the advances of Tim (a young Idris Elba from The Wire) and persuaded the worried Suzie to have a relationship with her. But in surely one of the worst lesbian moments in soap, she ended up having an affair with older neighbor, landlord and all-round top dog Pete Callan, with whom she planned to run away. She was, however, killed off in a boat explosion before any of these unsavory heterosexual capers could continue and Suzie disappeared into a rabbit hole somewhere.

BROOKSIDE — Lindsay Corkhill (Claire Sweeney) and Shelley Bower (Alexandra Wescourt) 1999

Over the years, Lindsey Corkhill had been transformed from a skint chip-shop worker into a gun-toting night club owner avoiding local gangsters. All of Lindsay’s relationships had been with men until she met and fell in love with lesbian character Shelley, who first appears at the opening of Lindsay’s nightclub. It was obvious that something was amiss when the loved up Lindsay immediately wanted to share their relationship with family and friends and Shelley persuaded her to keep it secret.

The reason became clear when Lindsay asked Shelley to keep an eye on her mum while she went away on business, and Shelley misheard this request as, “While I’m away do you want to, try and shag my mum?”

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Poor Mama Corkhill rebuffed the advances, but because lesbians are mental, Shelley of course set it up to look like they’d had sex and heartbroken Lindsay and her disgusted dad ultimately chucked Mama Corkhill out of her own house. Who knows what happened to Shelley and who knows how this storyline was ever considered a good idea in the writers’ room.

FAMILY AFFAIRS — Karen Ellis (Tanya Franks) and Kelly Hurst (Nicky Talacko) 2002

In 2001, Kelly Hurst flew from Australia to Charnham to be its first fully-fledged lesbian. She befriended the engaged Karen (who later played Cook’s drunkard of a mother in Skins), who soon questioned her own sexuality using a common displacement technique and uttering lines such as,”Look at me, no really look at me… I don’t look like myself.” This is code for, “My new best friend is a lesbian, I am questioning my sexuality and I am damn troubled by it all.” Not easily deciphered by anyone apart from the all-knowing lesbian viewer.

Unlike other gay characters that have gone before her, Kelly had friends that were also of a lesbian persuasion and they were sometimes allowed to visit. This gave room for proper discussions on such topics as lesbian parenting and campaigning for LGBT rights which was wonderful to see whilst the nation ate their pies and beans. All very positive, though you did have to question Kelly’s selection of skirts.

After recovering from cancer, Karen discovers she cannot have children. Step forward Kelly, to carry Karen and her new husband Matt’s baby, after which she promptly carried Karen to the bedroom. Karen left Matt soon after baby Grace was born and she and Kelly had a short-lived life together before Kelly fell down a flight of stairs on New Year’s Eve whilst arguing with Matt and subsequently died. Karen had a couple more lady flings and then went back to Matt and they both emigrated to Spain with Kelly’s baby.

EASTENDERS — Sonia (Natalie Cassidy) and Naomi (Petra Letang) 2006

By rights, as it is set in East London, EastEnders should be absolutely roaming with lesbians (and, of course, more people of color), but we had to wait over ten years before the writers gave it another proper go.

We say “proper go” because in 2004 they did air the most pointless one-off kiss ever between best friends Zoe (Michelle Ryan) and Kelly (Brooke Kinsella), which was bizarrely defended by Kinsella as “How best friends share emotion with each other.”

In EastEnders’ second attempt at a lesbian storyline, they were at the very least resourceful by using one of their longest serving characters Sonia Fowler (nee Jackson) to play out a lesbian fling. It did fail quite spectacularly in the authenticity stakes however.

Sonia had recently married mummy’s boy Martin Fowler, but before they could settle into any kind of post-marriage bliss, Naomi Julien arrived.

Sonia meets Naomi while training as a nurse and begins to “change.” Her “changes” are first betrayed by the fact that she realizes Martin is an idiot, something that viewers had discovered years before. Soon we witnessed the all too familiar trembling lips and just-a-second-too-long looks from an interested Sonia towards an all ready-love struck Naomi. Soon Sonia has left Martin and is playing nurses at home with Naomi, much to the amazement and shock of the rest of the residents of Albert Square.

But this relationship never built any foundations and Sonia Fowler never made a convincing lesbian — we always knew her life should have been with poor dead Jamie Mitchell. As if realizing their mistake, the writers suddenly had Sonia doing a metaphorical double-blink and realizing she should be with Martin after all and before you can say has-bian she returned to Martin and waltzed out of the show.

Naomi stayed in the square for a couple of months but because the writers ultimately didn’t know what to do with her, she was soon written out and no one cared.

Over the years EastEnders has managed to write fairly good gay male storylines, plus they are renowned for offering strong female characters — Kat, you will always figure strongly in our hearts. So why they keep feeding us this kind of lesbo-tripe we cannot understand.

HOLLYOAKS — Sarah Barnes (Loui Batley) 2008-2009

The Hollyoaks cast are chiefly of a younger demographic and more easy on the eye than their other soap counterparts. As such, a lot of the cast (men and women) pose in minimal attire for calendars at Christmas time.

Sarah Barnes was no exception to this theme of young beauties and was initially a magnetic force for the men in the show until she swapped teams after an alcohol fuelled one-night stand with her best-friend ever Zoe Carpenter (Zoë Lister) —who also happened to be sharing a bed with Sarah’s dad at the time.

Initially this storyline seemed to be an attempt by Hollyoaks to offer a bit of titillation to the male viewer as well as to bolster its “edgy” credentials rather than offering any meaningful comment on lesbianism.

However, though this brief fornication was dismissed as a drunken mistake by Zoe, it became the first step for Sarah in re-defining her sexuality — although not before sleeping with another couple of fellas first.

When Sarah first meets Lydia, who was the first girl with short hair to ever live in Chester, the beginnings of the relationship were quite positively portrayed. In particular, Sarah’s coming out scene to her best friends was a nice moment, in that it was a real non-event for them. But that is where the lovely ends and the barmy begins. It was so awful we will not indulge in the specifics beyond the fact that Sarah is dead by parachute sabotage at the hands of Lydia. We hope for Beth Jordache’s sake that Lydia was not sent to G Wing.

CORONATION STREET — Sophie (Brooke Vincent) and Sian (Sacha Parkinson) — (2010)

Coronation Street, the old lady of televised soap opera, is celebrating its 50th birthday this year by introducing its first ever lesbian storyline between teen characters Sian and Sophie, who seem to already be receiving good approval ratings from AfterEllen.com readers.

The characters have, of course, been best friends for a while, but recent arguments over Sian’s lying boyfriend Ryan, led Sophie to realize that her feelings for Sian are romantic and she kissed her confused friend. At first Sian was all like, “Um, what you doing, I’m not like that,” but, thankfully, the last episode saw the girls share more kisses. And while they are still not comfortable with definitions, they are sure they want to keep kissing.

It’s early days, but so far the storyline has been written positively and without titillation and the actresses have played the characters with conviction. Actress Brooke Vincent’s sorrow over Sian’s initial rejection was particularly touching. Sources tell us that their relationship will be a long-term commitment by the program, which already has a long term gay male and long-term transgendered female character.

If this is true, then this relationship will be one of the most important lesbian teen storylines ever to be aired on British television. It will even be more important than Naomily (and before you Tweet us to death with rebuttals, we didn’t say better, just more important), because while Skins is on E4, a digital channel watched mainly by a young, progressive demographic, Sianphie’s relationship will viewed en masse by the mainstream.

Furthermore, Sophie Webster is a character that was born, and has grown up, on our screens to two of the longest serving cast members Sally and Kevin. Our grans, mums, uncles and neighbors are invested in their lives already so how they all deal with Sophie’s sexuality will resonate powerfully.

This is Coronation Street and Sophie is a Webster so it is unlikely that Weatherfield’s first lesbian will have an easy ride. But let’s cross fingers and toes and hope that the writers at least keep in mind that this storyline is worth so much more than just ratings for the thousands of gay teenagers who are struggling with their sexuality across the UK.

“Great LezBritain” authors Sarah, a Londoner, and Lee, a Glaswegian, met in a gay discotheque one bleak mid winter, eight years ago and have been shacked up together ever since. When not watching Tipping The Velvet, they find time to write, run a PR company, DJ at their own club nights and love a bit of jam on toast. Follow them on Twitter at greatlezbritain.

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