Favourite Christmas soap moments – The Guardian

No one really gets married on Christmas Day, do they? … Alfie Moon and Kat Slater on their wedding day in the 2003 EastEnders Christmas special. Photograph: Adam Pensotti/BBC/PA
Perhaps because people are not that religious any more, soaps take on a scary profundity at Christmas. Even if you look down your nose at our long-running imaginary worlds for the rest of the year, chances are you’ll find yourself watching a horrendous fate befall the nation’s favourite Mancs and Cockneys on Tuesday.
This year it all sounds rather dreary, with the two big guns exposing Lolita-ish affairs during their special episodes. So we’ve rounded up 10 of the most memorable soap Christmases of all time – with video clips where available.
EastEnders: Den and Angie’s divorce (1986) The most famous of all Christmas soap moments, if only because it holds the record for the biggest Christmas TV audience of all time. 30.5 million people tuned in to watch Dirty Den serve his alcoholic wife Angie with divorce papers on Christmas Day. A rather minor revelation, all things considered, but still the benchmark by which all festive showdowns are judged. And it made Den’s disastrous resurrection look all the more embarrassing.
Coronation Street: Cilla blows up the chippy (2005) Most soaps use an explosion to cull underperforming cast members without needing to bother writing them exit storylines. Of course Corrie, being smarter and funnier, did the best Christmas fireball of that lot. Step forward orange-hued unfit mother Cilla Battersby Brown who, in a Cheat’s Christmas that puts Kerry Katona’s Iceland ads to shame, decided she would deep fry the turkey at Mr Wong’s chip shop, where she worked. Genius.
Hollyoaks: Claire’s far-fetched murder plot (2006) Hollyoaks wiped the floor with every other British soap this year. Now it’s conquered its own essential rubbishness, all that stands between it and world domination is the viewing public’s prejudices. This incredible turnaround can maybe be traced back to last year’s Christmas extravaganza, where superbitch Claire tried to enact the most convoluted murder plot ever. After manipulating husband Max into taking cocaine (in soap land, you see, all it takes is one line and you have a heart attack at 24), she whisked him away to the Lake District, before throwing his little brother Tom’s coat into an icy lake in the hope that his rescue would finish off the job. Watch this unique kind of genius here.
EastEnders: Tiffany dies (1998) Played by Martine McCutcheon Tiffany Mitchell’s New Year demise under the wheels of Frank Butcher’s car, pursued by Gwaaaaaaant has still gone down as one of soap’s most memorable festive moments. Mostly because nobody attempted to call an ambulance. They just stood there, soaking up "the shot".
Neighbours: Doctor Clive’s Dream (1986) Not the greatest dream sequence in Neighbours history (that gong has to go to the iconic Bouncer’s Dream), but this candy-coated reminder to the grim British contingent of how it should be done is burned onto the brains of twentysomethings nationwide. Doctor Clive – refereeing a boxing match between Mike and Shane for the heart of Plain Jane Superbrain – is knocked out and goes into a bizarre festive dream sequence where the cast were re-imagined as pantomime characters. Clive was Santa, Mike and Shane were Tweedle Dum and Dee, Paul Robinson some nameless panto villain – and Scott and Charlene were in Europe pretending to be pop stars.
Coronation Street: Hilda’s farewell (1987) Before Coronation Street became the non-stop carnival of Wags, immigrant labour disputes, preening sex maniacs and comedy pensioners we know and love today, it was dreary. This boring spell began with the departures of most of its iconic characters; the last of whom to go was sharp-tongued, mural-owning cleaning lady Hilda Ogden. Jean Alexander hung up her curlers (for, er, Last of the Summer Wine) with a sentimental send-off in the Rovers where she squeaked through wartime anthem Wish Me Luck as You Wave Me Goodbye. Alexander says she won’t watch the Street any more because there’s too much rutting and not enough jokes – or was it the other way round?
EastEnders: Pauline Fowler’s death (2006) Memorable mainly for its awfulness, last year’s Stenders Christmas storyline marked the end of Pauline Fowler. She collapsed under the Square’s Christmas tree in another long-winded murder plot. Wendy Richard’s first job offer after leaving? A televised facelift.
Coronation Street: Richard Hillman doesn’t kill Emily Bishop (2003) Corrie tends not to go for its barnstorming set-pieces on Christmas Day, preferring humour, character development and plot revelations. So serial killer Richard Hillman didn’t actually finish plucky pensioner Emily Bishop off that day – he just stood menacingly over her with a crowbar in a way that made his intentions perfectly clear. A few weeks later he would cock the whole thing up, eventually putting Tracy Shaw out of our misery.
Emmerdale: Freak storm (2003) I’ve never watched Emmerdale on the grounds that it’s rubbish – apart from the plane crash in 1993 which at least had a lot of explosions. So for our token Yorkshire pick, we have the most similar event to happen at Christmas. In 2003, 10 years after the Lockerbie-inspired plot line, there was a freak storm which led to the pub collapsing, killing Tricia Dingle – who would later reappear under her real name of Sheree Murphy on I’m A Celebrity…
Coronation Street: Curly names a star after Raquel (1994) The easy option for soap producers wanting a big romantic gesture on Christmas Day is to stage a wedding. I mean, how many real people actually get married on Christmas Day? Claire and Ashley did , and EastEnders married off two Slater sisters on two consecutive years. But the most brilliant festive love-in had to be Curly, the stargazing, supermarket-managing sap giving nice-but-dim Raquel his gift – he led her up to his observatory and pointed out a star he’d had named after her. Who knew you could do that?

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