Brookside reruns

[Redglitter]

Has anyone else been watching today? I've watched 4 episodes so far. Dated, but loving it

Did anyone watch Play for Today on C5 with Sue Johnstone?

Is it worth watching ?

Well I thought so. She is very good in the role

I have just watched it i thought she was very good
But she's good in everything imo.

No haven’t seen it I’ll perhaps watch on catch up!
Ive just watched the first 20 episodes on STV via Sky , I just searched under Sky for Brookside and found it without having to download STV.

However it didn’t let me download episode 21 so I’ve just had to download STV and now have to watch Brooke with the adverts ! Very annoying! I was enjoying watching without the ads !

Anyone still watching this ? I’m still far behind in 1983.

Alan’s talking about working from home. A phrase that didn’t really become commonplace until 30 years later !

And Bobby talking about robots taking people’s jobs. Like now where AI is going to replace people.

40 years later and we’re facing very similar problems!

Yes despite 40+ years on some things are still the same
I think the main difference is the Internet and mobile phones
I'm watching the current episodes and Geoff Rogers was looking through the phone book trying to find a girl he fancied phone number 🤣
I remember it well!

I’m still watching, also the current episodes. When did we stop using phone books?!

I dont know! I had forgotten all about them and the yellow pages tbh 😂🤣

Yellow pages were still being printed well into the 2000s! They just got smaller !

I definitely remember using tuen at the turn of the century, before Google was widely available.

If it wasn’t for the internet and mobiles, life in early Brookside isn’t much different to now!

I also remember the phone book, remember that ? For people who had their names and telephone numbers made to the public?

The open registrar I think it was.

Did anyone notice the Collins family don’t have Liverpool accents ? I appreciate the actors may not come from there but even so.

Also where was Roger and Heather meant to be from? I know that Amanda Burton is originally from Northern Ireland, there’s sometimes a very small trace of it when she talks .

The Collins family are from the wirral and came from a big house when Paul was made redundant the kids went to private school so they wouldn't have had a broad accent
I think Roger and Heather were supposed to have met at university presumably Liverpool?
Not sure where Roger was supposed to be from originally .
The recast of Gorden ( which you are probably not up to ) made no sense because Gorden was only 14/15 when Brookside started
But they recast a much older man.

The lack of scouse accents (even very trace ones) was always weird - not just the Collins family. I was born/brought up in Liverpool then the Wirral and there was always a trace at the minimum! No one has a strong accent (and I’m not talking about the “professional scouser” accents nowadays) - maybe so the show was accessible to a wide audience?

The recasting of Gordon was totally ridiculous 🤣

I think the corkhilks and Terry are pretty broad?
When they say My Arl fella ,is it supposed to be Old Fella ,or is it actually Arl?

Yes they are more realistic, but still not that strong! Arl is indeed old 🤣

Birkenhead is the Wirral isn’t it ? Other side of the Mersey ? My knowledge of the area isn’t good at all as I’m from the South East!

But I have worked with people from Birkenhead, they all had what I thought was strong Scouse accents ! I couldn’t tell the difference.

Liverpool really does have some unique phrases though doesn’t it ? Arl fellah ( dad) isn’t used anywhere else as far as I know , and I’ve only heard it on Brookside previously.

“Alright La” is another one , meaning lad or mate ?..

I had a teacher at school who was the spitting image and sounded like Frank Rogers , he was from Liverpool too and often used the phrases “soft lad “ and “soft girl” to us !

Both Gordon and Lucy Collins were replaced with different actors ( I haven’t got to that bit yet ) although apparently the original Lucy comes back in the final few episodes before the family are written out.

I actually saw actor Mark Burgess in a pantomime way back in about 1995, apparently he still acts now but not on television.

Im just watching for the 80s nostalgia!

Birko is indeed in the Wirral and with a strong accent! But the Collins family wouldn’t have lived there - they would have been from the other (west and down) side🤣 where there are still accents detectable and deffo would have been in the 80s!

Liverpool does have a culture all of its own
Being a Mancunian myself the cities are very different despite both being in the Northwest.

Yeah I get that, and there’s only about 30 miles between them ? I’ve noticed the North West has very different accents between the towns and cities , despite not having huge distance from eachother.

Manchester and Chester are not too far from Liverpool, different accents and dialects altogether. And there there’s Blackpool and the Lancashire towns such as Bolton and Blackburn.

Yet many accents sound very similar in the South East, outside of London. For instance Brighton and Dover for example, are quite far apart from eachother yet you wouldn’t really notice a difference in how people speak.

Ive also known people from the Newcastle area, who barely have an accent at all, whilst others have full on geordie accents !! Although it’s more middle class people who don’t tend to have strong regional accents.

Yes northern accent, s can vary a lot!

Interesting observations. I’m from Cheshire originally and would agree. The Liverpool accent ‘travelled’ in the 60s and 70s as many people relocated post war to Crewe, Runcorn, Warrington, Ellesmere Port and the accent went with them plus, dare I say, was ratcheted up a few notches. I had friends who went to uni soft northern and came back harsh scouse. I think it’s about identity and belonging. If you ever get a chance there’s an old black and white film ‘The magnet’ filmed in 1950s New Brighton (Wirral) and Liverpool. The kids in the films are locals and the accents are soft scouse.

Heather was from Northern Ireland, I remember she went to visit her parents at the hotel they owned there and Derek Thompson (Charlie from Casualty) appeared around that time as her old friend. His sister was the pregnant girl from there who came to stay at Heather’s house too.

If you listen to the Beatles accents, that’s how all my family spoke in the 70s/80s - from Anfield, Tuebrook, Everton valley, Fazakerley, West Derby…. Nothing like the one you hear now!

Oh yes , Heather said she from
Northern Ireland and in real life so is Amanda Burton. Not sure where Roger was originally meant to be from though.

I wonder where Sheila is meant to be from ?