OK it went rubbish when Meg Mortimer left and the noughties revival was terrible and is best forgotten, but prime era Crossroads was watchable with a killer theme tune by Tony Hatch.
The soap concerned a motel near Birmingham, run by Meg Mortimer, played by former host of Lunchbox, Noele Gordon. It was ITV's first attempt at a daily soap and at its peak in the late seventies had 16 million viewers and numbered a Prime Minister and his wife as fans. Yes the set was cheap and the show was largely studio bound and made on VT, but so were most shows in those days, so it is a bit mean to say Crossroads was cheaply made as it looks no cheaper than many of the classic shows from the seventies. Also people knock the acting, but was it any worse than the Australian shows that replaced it, and certainly huge viewing figures suggest people didn't have a problem with the so called ham acting.
I sort of liked Crossroads and some of it was unintentionally funny, such as when Benny the handyman( my favourite character) went to get a spanner and vanished for four months and one memorable plot where a cleaner was accused of working for the KGB. Also the camp chef Shooey Mc Phail was hilarious. While Crossroads could be serious, such as the fire and Sandy Richardson's car crash, it had plenty of lighter moments, something that seems to be lacking in modern soaps, and in the main the characters were likable.
The soap concerned a motel near Birmingham, run by Meg Mortimer, played by former host of Lunchbox, Noele Gordon. It was ITV's first attempt at a daily soap and at its peak in the late seventies had 16 million viewers and numbered a Prime Minister and his wife as fans. Yes the set was cheap and the show was largely studio bound and made on VT, but so were most shows in those days, so it is a bit mean to say Crossroads was cheaply made as it looks no cheaper than many of the classic shows from the seventies. Also people knock the acting, but was it any worse than the Australian shows that replaced it, and certainly huge viewing figures suggest people didn't have a problem with the so called ham acting.
I sort of liked Crossroads and some of it was unintentionally funny, such as when Benny the handyman( my favourite character) went to get a spanner and vanished for four months and one memorable plot where a cleaner was accused of working for the KGB. Also the camp chef Shooey Mc Phail was hilarious. While Crossroads could be serious, such as the fire and Sandy Richardson's car crash, it had plenty of lighter moments, something that seems to be lacking in modern soaps, and in the main the characters were likable.