British soap operas follow several conventions: They have an open narrative with no defined ending, allowing stories to continue indefinitely. Each soap has a distinctive theme tune and introduction. They typically have large casts portraying working class characters centered around a small, familiar setting like a town square or street. Episodes end in cliffhangers to encourage viewers to continue watching the unfolding stories.

1. British Soap Opera
Conventions
Jess Davis

2. Each British soap opera follows the same
few conventions, these conventions are
what makes a soap easily identifiable as a
soap.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. Convention 3: Large casts
• Soap tend to have large casts, to keep them verisimilitude to a real
community.
• 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.

6. Convention 4: Set around a small central area
Soap are set around a small central area to give a realistic community
feel. Audiences then become familiar with the residents within, and it
almost become as if it is a place they know.
For example
• EastEnders is set around a Town Square
• Coronation Street is set down a street

7. Convention 5: Aim for credibility
• As a rule, British soaps are realistic or 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.

8. 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.

9. Convention 7: Always more than one storyline
being shown
There are usually 3-5 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.