Realism

'Brookside does not have that many plots based in high drama, but concentrates more on the every day, almost mundane* things in life.... one of my main aims was to try and reflect [contemporary] Britain.' (Phil Redmond, introduction to Brookside the Official Companion, 1987. * Mundane - of this world, ordinary, matter of fact
*'Brookside storylines are not sensational - it's just that we touch issues which people find sensational.' (Phil Redmond Foreword to Phil Redmond's Brookside Life in the Close* 1994)**

As a viewer since the start (with a few sanity breaks) I challenge the notion that Brookside is terribly realistic. I accept that in a soap opera, the narrative requires events to happen and people to experience events at a pace and to an extent that the ordinary viewer in the street would be very unlikely to experience.

However, so many absolutely strange and weird things have happened in Brookside which are quite alien to the vast majority of viewers. Let's look at a few examples.
Example 1 Jimmy Corkhill

Example 2 Jacqui Dixon

Example 3 The Mysterious Deadly Illness

Example 4 Sinbad Mandy and the Patio

Example 5 The Hole in the Road