1 Soaps, series and serials
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Steve Blandford
Abstract
This chapter deals primarily with the earlier part of McGovern’s career both within established genre such as soap opera and the crime series and then into his first authored series with a strong autobiographical basis, Hearts and Minds and The Lakes.
The chapter is key in charting McGovern’s early negotiation with the institutional constraints of television from his introduction of radical trade unionism into the soap opera form to the comparatively populist narrative of The Lakes, albeit a populism that still has a hero reading Gerard Manley Hopkins and scenes of a sexual nature explicit enough to incur wrath from predictable sources.
Whilst the book as a whole is organised around television forms rather than chronologically, this first chapter does provide a comprehensive overview of McGovern’s early development and the thematic and stylistic pre-occupations that recur throughout the rest of his career.
Abstract
This chapter deals primarily with the earlier part of McGovern’s career both within established genre such as soap opera and the crime series and then into his first authored series with a strong autobiographical basis, Hearts and Minds and The Lakes.
The chapter is key in charting McGovern’s early negotiation with the institutional constraints of television from his introduction of radical trade unionism into the soap opera form to the comparatively populist narrative of The Lakes, albeit a populism that still has a hero reading Gerard Manley Hopkins and scenes of a sexual nature explicit enough to incur wrath from predictable sources.
Whilst the book as a whole is organised around television forms rather than chronologically, this first chapter does provide a comprehensive overview of McGovern’s early development and the thematic and stylistic pre-occupations that recur throughout the rest of his career.
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Dedication vi
- Contents viii
- General editors’ preface x
- Acknowledgements xii
- Introduction 1
- 1 Soaps, series and serials 24
- 2 ‘Hybrid’ forms 64
- 3 Documentary and historical drama 111
- 4 Single plays and a conclusion 152
- References 174
- Index 181
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Dedication vi
- Contents viii
- General editors’ preface x
- Acknowledgements xii
- Introduction 1
- 1 Soaps, series and serials 24
- 2 ‘Hybrid’ forms 64
- 3 Documentary and historical drama 111
- 4 Single plays and a conclusion 152
- References 174
- Index 181
