Crossroads

At its best probably in the 1960s, Crossroads was always terrific fun.

The programme had an innocence and lightness of touch in its 60s days that it lost in the 70s and great fun was to be had as sets occasionally wobbled and studio arc lights fell down! The 1960s characters were great - and included such legendaries as the Richardsons and Hugh Mortimer, Diane, Tish Hope, Marilyn Gates (mark 1!) Mr Lovejoy and Mr Booth and Amy Turtle.

The show was daring - a storyline about a single mother, a waitress at the motel, was strong stuff back then. But murder was more difficult. In a 1960s story involving the character Gerald Bailey (whose wife, Ruth, later married Meg's brother) great pains had to be taken so as not to "distress" viewers in a storyline originally envisaged as murder, but later reconfigured to "sudden death".

However, by the late 1960s, attempted murder WAS allowed as we saw the character Malcolm Ryder trying to poison the show's heroine, Meg Richardson - his wife in the plot at that time! The 70s and 80s episodes are also great fun. The 70s episodes have added value as we see all sorts of middle aged people wearing the garish and flared style of clothes which were so cutting edge and trendy amongst the young hippies of the 1967/1968 Summer Of Love. Younger 70s characters, like Martin Bell, look positively dowdy in comparison to the 60s fashion following older set!

The 70s and 80s episodes saw a continuation of cutting edge soap story lines - I particularly recall the introduction of Benny in the 1970s (learning difficulties) and the terrific Downs Syndrome and racism story lines in the 1980s.

In the 1980s, the show altered dramatically and it seemed a terrible shame to dispatch Meg, but Crossroads gave excellent value with the introduction of chararacters such as Valerie Pollard and Nicola Freeman and a brief return for Amy Turtle! I followed the show from start to finish and enjoyed it all, though I do feel now that the 70s episodes are rather over-hyped (so much 70s stuff really belongs to the 60s!). From wonky but lovable 60s soap to shoulder padded, witty but gentle late 80s ending, Crossroads was required viewing for me for an awful lot of years.

Happy memories!

The very first producer of this Brummie based soap opera was a gentleman called Reg Watson . This name may not be recognisable but it will ring a bell at the back of your mind and when I say he moved to Australia and created a show called PRISONER CELL BLOCK H you'll know who he is now . And like PRISONER this soap based at a Midlands motel was total turd , but often highly entertaining . In fact both myself and many of my peer group would discuss the previous night's episode at school

Every episode starts on a cliff hanger opening : " What you mean you're having my husbands baby " . The actors freeze , but it not a freeze frame camera shot as you can clearly see the actors tremble in fright at their dialogue . The caption CROSSROADS flashes up and Tony Hatch's guitar theme tune blasts in - Ding Ding Ding - Ding Ding Ding Ding . Then the actors get back to what they were doing before . Very bizarre and there's another idiosyncratic revealing mistake in almost every scene and that's the actors waiting for their cue . When the action cuts from one location to another you can clearly see for a brief moment the actor standing still like a statue then they go on to pour a cup of tea or make a phone call etc

But it was the script and characters that made the show entertaining garbage . Shugie McPhee was a master chef and head of the kitchen and in one subplot tried to bring down the motel by contaminating guests food . In one memorable scene a big plastic spider finds itself becoming dessert . And there was Adam Chance who was Ken Barlow's only rival in British Soapland's least convincing hetrosexual character

For me and many others the real star was Benny the retarded oddjob man at the motel . If Channel 4 did a programme called 100 GREATEST RETARDED CHARACTERS IN TELEVISION Benny would win by a mile and unsurprisingly the more ridiculous plots revolved around him . Benny is maimed trying to stop a couple of joy riders , Benny is left 25,000 pound in a relatives will , and Benny is framed for murder . Don't worry he was innocent , it turned out the manager of the garage killed his lover , heard someone walk in and hid as Benny found the body then gasped " My god Benny what have you done ? " . Benny was something of a national institution and no amateur talent contest of the late 1970s was complete without an impressionist trying - And failing - to capture Benny's mannerism

I stopped watching it in the early 1980s and I heard that the producers at the time tried to make it a serious drama which caused the viewing figures to drop and led to its ultimate cancellation .

To sum up Crossroads is a task which is practically impossible. The wobbly set legend is a strange one, we know when the show started it was filmed in a old cinema, so the sets were of a stage-production quality, but when Crossroads moved into ATV Centre (1970) those wobbles became no worse than any other TV show. (In fact I noticed a wobble in one of the sets on Coronation St a few months ago)

Was the 'so bad, its good' true? Well no, the cast and crew put in 110% into the programme, ATV were not exactly generous with cash, so maybe it did look cheap, however unless other soaps they were doing Crossroads five times a week on less cash than the rest so the fact they made anything at least half decent should be praised not knocked.

The show was a ground-breaker, but people prefer to knock it and insult its 17 million fans in the process. Crossroads made television history time and time again, yet how many people know of any of these feats?

Maybe the legend of the wobbles and the poor standards have actually stood the show well as even nearly 20 years after it disappeared everyone still knows of Crossroads.

Today compared with the poor Carlton version, the original Crossroads now stands out as a classic. The show boasted a host of stars, David Jason, Bob Monkhouse, Max Wall, Elaine Paige, Ken Dodd, Sue Nicholls and Johnny Briggs all stayed within the motel to name only a few.

The story lines at the time were said to be sometimes far fetched, but nothing compared to some that appeared later in Brookside or Coronation Street. Crossroads set the trend for real-life issue based plots, it also aimed to entertain. It was a family soap, something that is rare on television today. It wasn't afraid to be different, and it never gave in to the TV Critics, as Lord Lew Grade said, he made the show for the fans, not for the ATV cash generator or critics. Something ITV could learn from today. It might have been cheap but it was popular, and thats something many expensive shows have failed to be!

I was never a fan. Despite the factory production-line acting and writing it gave simple pleasure to millions and that's surely a good thing.

Reviewers then as now enjoy indirectly mocking the masses for their lack of taste by mocking what the masses enjoy.

We've all criticized Crossroads at times. We've all commented on the wooden sets, the intentionally bad acting and the lack of guests at Crossroads Motel. However, it was addictive in some way and was on air from 1964-1988.

Meg Richardson was in charge of the Crossroads Motel for awhile. That woman had one long bad life and everyone else in the show did as well. It seemed odd that people could live such eventful lives but that is soap for you.

One of the shows favourite characters was Benny Hawkins played by Paul Henry. Benny was the motel idiot but we liked him all the same. He was an odd character with his woolly hat but even odder, he once went AWOL from the show for several months without any explanation. The actor who played Benny opened up a pub in Birmingham. I last visited it in 1994 but I'm not sure if it is still there.

There were some rather odd stories on the show which perhaps ensured it's enduring popularity. Bizarre is the only word to describe some of the plots at times but hey, it was a lot better than Brookside ever was.

All in all, Crossroads will always have a place in my heart even if it was never clear whether it was a soap or comedy. It made a comeback in the 21st century but I haven't watched the new show. I don't have the time or inclination (at least currently) to watch the new version but I am sure nothing could ever compare to the original.

I wonder if, in the pilot episode of the new version, they still said, "Crossroads Motel, may I help you?"