The American election race is gathering momentum.  Barack Obama won the first round in Iowa, but with the support of women voters Hillary Clinton clinched the second, the New Hampshire primary.  What was it she said or did to win support?  Well, a few tears and the declaration that “I listened to you and, in the process, I found my own voice.”  Is it just me, or did that come across like a soundbite precisely targeted at the female Oprah-watching demographic, schooled to relish narratives in which women endure suffering in one form or another but rise above it and come to ‘find their voices’?  Go to a bookshop if you don’t believe me: it’s a high-selling modern genre. 

Or maybe I’m just a bit sceptical at the moment, having watched ITV’s Thursday night double of Moving Wallpaper and Echo Beach.  The first is a sitcom about the team behind a soap opera set in Cornwall, the second is that very soap opera.  A cracking and clever concept, brought to you by Red Planet and Kudos, and I’ll be sticking round to find out how well it’s executed.  

The reason for my cynicism about Hillary’s speech was the uneasy feeling that I could sense the backroom machinations that had led to it.  That’s the appeal of Moving Wallpaper, which lifts the veil that’s kept the creation of a soap opera from its viewers up till now, or at least flirts with the idea.  And it does so with quite a degree of credibility, the show’s producer Jonathan Pope saying he wants Echo Beach to have “wit, class and a permanent erection”.  His nemesis, the network’s Head of Continuing Drama, instructs Jonathan to hit the ethnic quota, saying “We’ve got Dev from Coronation Street and not much else,” which is rather spikier than I was expecting to hear. 

The opening episode of Moving Wallpaper ended with the team gathering round in Jonathan’s office to watch Echo Beach, another playful touch that carried through into the soap opera itself.  I was surprised how much visual storytelling was involved in the opening scenes of Echo Beach, certainly more so than you’d get in the majority of Eastenders or Coronation Street episodes.  But does it have what it takes to drag viewers back and build up a relationship with them like those shows have?  Hmm. 

In tone, Echo Beach has a good dose of the breezy Australian approach to soap, and in Jason Donovan one of its stars too.  It’s fast paced, with a musical backdrop through much of what’s happening, much of which revolves around sexy young things cavorting on the beach.  And there are a few sexy older things, including ex-Eastender Martine McCutcheon, for retro appeal and what passes for gravitas in these parts. 

Part of the fun was seeing how threads of Moving Wallpaper were realised in Echo Beach, for instance the decrepit state of the surf shack that Jason Donovan was opening, because Jonathan Pope had blown the set design money on a wet-room for his office. These are fun shows, with some real wit amid the froth, and I’ll be checking them out to see how they develop.  Besides, with the way that the American election is developing, I need a reliable form of escapism.