Coronation street

Up next… Yookay Street, a refreshing new soap opera

The idea of TV soap operas was originally, at least in part, to reflect the nation as a whole. This was never really true – out of dramatic necessity, the characters in these shows take an unusual interest in one another’s business and tend to have peculiarly eventful lives. But it was more true than today, when soaps – for all their obsession with ‘issues’ – are squeamish and avoidant, preferring to duck difficult topics. Here is my attempt to restore the balance with a more honest soap opera, where all the problems of modern Britain are concentrated in one place. Everything is absolutely fine on… Yookay Street. SCENE 1 – THE STREET. Afternoon We open on a long, terraced urban street with a corner shop at one end and a pub at the other.

The Maureen Lipman Edition

36 min listen

Dame Maureen Lipman has been a fixture of stage and screen for over five decades. She has been a member of Laurence Olivier's National Theatre company and the Royal Shakespeare Company; she is well known for her roles in acclaimed films like Educating Rita and The Pianist; and most recently she has had an award-winning run in soap Coronation Street. For a generation she will always be 'Beattie': the grandmother from the BT adverts. On the podcast, Maureen talks to Katy Balls about her journey from 'the cobbler of Kazimierz Dolny to the cobbles of Corrie'. They discuss selling comedy as a commodity, whether you can separate art from the artist and her most recent role in a Christmas panto.  Produced by Patrick Gibbons. Photo credit: Jay Brooks.