Crossroads

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?"

The previous reviewer is quite right. Crossroads was of the "so bad, it's good" ilk. Still, during its peak it had its followers including the (then) prime minister's wife, Mrs. Mary Wilson, a staunch follower. Crossroads suffered from a hectic schedule, originally five days a week. No time for retakes, so it was not uncommon to see a camera crew whizzing by in the background, or to witness an overhanging microphone at the top of the TV screen. Fluffed lines guaranteed in every episode. In its favor, it did not bring dead and buried characters back to life, or have five different actors play the same character (as is common in US soaps). Aside from those mentioned, there were many other memorable characters such as the mousy postmistress Miss Tatum (Elisabeth Croft), the "tart with a heart" hairdresser Vera Downend (Zeph Gladstone), and the kitchen gossip Amy Turtle (Ann George, who deserved an award for worst actress).

Looking back years later, and having spent ten years in the States, I can only compare Crossroads star Noele Gordon to Susan Lucci, the queen of US soaps. Gordon was hardly the glamorous star that Lucci is, but she was undoubtedly THE queen of the UK soap. When she was unceremoniously dumped from Crossroads in 1981, there was a public outcry, and the soap's fate was sealed (as was Gordon's who never quite got over her dismissal and died four years later). Crossroads was given an overhaul and plodded on for a few more years. In the last episode, Jane Rossington (Gordon's screen daughter who spoke the first lines in 1964) drove off into the distance (sunset unavailable) and it was the end of an era. Crossroads and Coronation Street often replaced each other at No. 1 in the charts, just as Coronation Street and Eastenders do these day. That's how good/bad it was.

Yes, Carlton Television who brought Central TV is now bringing back the Queen of soaps.

Crossroads will no doubt be very different to what we used to see on our screens, but it would be wonderful to hear that music again as well as travel through the village of Kings Oak once again.

I, for one, will be glued to the screen to see what strange new storylines the writers will come up with. I don't think I'll be alone either.

Welcome back Crossroads, show EastEnders and Coronation Street what REAL soap-opera is all about!

For about 25 years, this was British TV's best loved bad soap. Shaky sets, some over the top storylines and a host of okay actors revelling in the whole affair.

Set in a fictitious Midlands town, it centres on the staff and guests at the eponymous Motel - in the early days run by Meg Mortimer (Noelle Gordon) and later by Nicola Freeman (Gabrielle Drake).

The best characters included irascible Scots chef Shughie McFee (from The Great Escape); David Hunter (Ronald Allen from a Night to Remember) and Hammer veteran Sandor Eles (Countess Dracula) as a cliched chef.

Look out too for the late Jeremy Sinden (Donald's son) who went on to play one of the ill-fated pilots in Star Wars - a little movie he shot inbetween breaks from Crossroads.

However, head and shoulders above them all was scruffy, backward, lovable Benny Hawkins who never had much luck - his gypsy girlfriend was knocked down and killed on his wedding day - but with his woolly hat and good heart, he was the Midlands version of Forrest Gump long before Tom Hanks cornered the market in loveable simpletons.

The whole thing was repackaged and revamped as Neighbours, a show also boasting a Tony Hatch theme tune. At one point in the late Seventies, Paul McCartney and Wings even provided a rockier theme tune for this Seventies slice of nonsense, nicely spoofed as Acorn Antiques in Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV.

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!