In case you missed it, today’s Daily Express front cover is
yet another lazy attack on the BBC, screaming indignantly that “This is how the
BBC is spending your money,” over the revelation that Songs of Praise is being
filmed at the migrant camp in Calais. Now, I’m as annoyed as anyone that Songs
of Praise is still on the air, but the fact is, the BBC has never been short of
critics for what some see as institutionalised profligacy.
Similar accusations were levelled at the corporation back in
the early 1990s, when it was revealed that the BBC was building a huge complex
on the Costa Del Sol for its bold new serialised drama. Costing somewhere in
the region of £10m, the critics were piling onto Eldorado before a single
awkward, barely audible minute had even been filmed.
It could have all turned out so differently. In those heady
days of pre-Maastricht enthusiasm, there seemed to be a genuine desire to embrace
an informal European Union. At that time, the only acknowledgement of a
bustling, dynamic Europe on our TV screens was the curious Henry Kelly-fronted
quiz Going For Gold. Here, a retired dinner lady from Bolton could effortlessly wipe
the floor with a PhD from Luxembourg, simply because all the questions were in
English. We were, as a nation, cautiously optimistic about feeling more
connected to Europe – intrigued by the possibilities of open boarders, if not
exactly cock-a-hoop at the idea of a continental breakfast in Bridlington.
In the seven years since its debut, EastEnders had grown
into a ratings juggernaut – regularly besting Coronation Street - despite its
oppressively downbeat tone and the kind of styling that made its cast look as
if they’d crawled from the wreckage of a burning meth lab. What was needed was
a sunny, cheerful, multi-cultural froth – focusing on a diverse group of
ex-pats, unfolding sofa beds, regretting the sangria, and suspiciously sniffing
the unfamiliar cheese on the Costa.
Created by the ‘can’t-fail’ duo of Tony Holland and Julia
Smith, Eldorado attempted to mine its mostly light-hearted drama from the
interconnectivity of a community that found friendship and love could overcome
any linguistic boundary. Or, at least, that was the idea. The reality, was
notably less auspicious.
For a start, the race to begin filming required a number of
short-cuts to be taken on the casting front. Filling out the core British cast
with native German, French, Spanish and Danish speakers was a noble venture,
but the casting directors forgot to check the English capabilities of their
European performers.
Within their own homes, the characters would converse in
their native tongue, which managed to disguise a multitude of sins. Bizarrely,
the powers-that-be had decided that viewers didn’t need subtitles to follow
these scenes; ignoring the fact that even Meryl Streep would struggle to convey
the complexity and nuance of unpaid spa bills in Danish. Elsewhere, the actors
were forced to communicate in English, a task that many of them made seem about
as effortless as riding a hostess trolley around Brands Hatch.
Not that the British cast members fared much better – many
of them delivered their own dialogue as though they were being prompted off screen
in semaphore. Unsurprisingly, only the older performers had any chance of
redeeming themselves; when they weren’t struggling with what appeared to be
some hastily-fitted dentures.
As if the dialogue and delivery weren’t problematic enough,
matters weren’t helped by the appalling acoustics created by the purpose-built
set. Unlike regular British soaps, which tend to alternate between outside
broadcasts for exterior shots and studio locations for interiors, Eldorado was
all shot on location. The sound bounced around the whitewashed walls, creating
a kind of echo-chamber, where every line sounded somehow less convincing with
every reverberation.
The show itself went through three key phases, during its
tragically short life. The first, was its chaotic opening, as a complex
tapestry of faces, names and language skills attempted to deliver tons of
expository dialogue and background character details that could have been
ripped off wholesale from Blind Date – filed under “What’s your name, and where
do you come from?”
The show’s creators were clearly struggling as well. They
seemed to be aiming for a light screwball tone for much of the first few
episodes, but as a consequence, this left half the unprepared cast acting as if
they’d suffered a head injury. With no discernible plots to pursue, and a knack
for conversation that made Siri seem warm and engaging, many of the secondary
characters floundered. So it wasn’t too much of a surprise when the need for a
dramatic overhaul was announced.
With new producers on board, briefed to clean house with
extreme prejudice, the second phase of Eldorado took a decidedly dark turn.
Those performers whose line delivery was about as reliable as second class
post, were given their marching orders – and probably still needed help
following the directions. As the actors were issued with one-way Ryanair
flights back to Luton, their characters were hastily written out of the show.
And given how irrelevant most of them were, the writers seemed to revel in
their own ruthlessness.
Fizz, initially set up to bring a touch of youthful glamour,
went missing overnight, only to die off-screen when her body washed up under
Brighton Pier. This revelation came in the form of one of those two-hander
episodes so beloved by EastEnders, but lost much of its impact delivered by a
hyperactive Nick Moran in a badly-lit apartment. Likewise, the sudden
revelation that bumbling middle-aged restaurateur Bunny was actually a
predatory, opportunistic paedophile, seemed needlessly dark.
At around the same time, Gavin and Alan Hindle who, in
another life, could have sustained a whole series of Magaluf Weekender, were
dispatched back to Nottingham when one of them contracted schizophrenia in the
time it takes to brush the sand off a deckchair.
And then there was the double-whammy of Javier. First, he
was revealed to be Paco, the not-so-imaginary secret lover of Freddie, the only
gay in the villa, on the eve of his wedding to Ingrid. But before viewers had a
chance to process the first decent cliff-hanger in Eldorado’s history, Javier
died of carbon monoxide poisoning in the very next episode. Given that most
soaps feel the need to reveal their hand slowly – Bobby Beale will probably
have an OBE by the time the whole of Albert Square discovers his secret – this
rapid-fire approach to revelations rewarded those of us who’d stuck with the
show through its so-bad-it’s-good era. We thrilled to the idea that anyone
could and would be wiped out at a moment’s notice. Think Game of Thrones, but
with a few more crocodile-shaped lilos.
The axing of all that dead wood, did allow certain other
characters to shine, albeit not always for the right reasons. In particular,
the creators’ desire to celebrate the diversity of Europe often fell into
caricature and cliché.
Put-upon housewife Gwen was such a sad-sack that we half
expected to see King Edwards stencilled onto her blouse, and her belligerent
drunken Scottish husband made Rab C Nesbitt seem subtle by comparison. In
contrast to Gwen’s never-ending despair, there was Isabelle Leduc, the French
housewife and aspiring novelist who was a constantly simmering volcano of sexual
longing. Delivering all her lines as if she was hyperventilating into a brown
paper bag, she was forever punching away at a typewriter in a shimmering
nightie, or cheating on her mahogany husband whenever he disappeared to give
another tennis lesson.
Olive the English busybody was an elderly Mail-reading
spinster, and 'Snowy' White was a feckless Irish handyman straight out of the
Builders episode of Fawlty Towers. Then there was Marcus Tandy. A
slick-haired snake oil salesman who dressed like he'd fallen out of a Bacardi
ad, Maaarrrrrkkuusss was forever barking orders into a phone so large that it
pushed the very definition of ‘mobile.’ And that's just scratching the surface
of this lukewarm gazpacho of multi-culturalism quietly curdling in the midday
sun.
And yet some indefinable quality, barely visible to
the naked eye, kept viewers coming back. Not many, admittedly. Six months in,
and it sometimes felt like there were more people appearing in Eldorado, than actually
watching it back home. By this point, the show had evolved (as much by accident
as by design) into a pretty compelling soap opera, but unfortunately; it was
too little, too late.
The final phase of Eldorado’s short-lived time on BBC One
came, ironically, after the axe had already fallen. Alan Yentob decided to cut
his losses and called time on Joy’s bar. By this point, the cast members
surviving those dark early days had finally grown into their roles, the sound
engineers had fixed the audio, and the producers had delivered some genuinely
gripping drama.
As it hobbled to its unavoidable conclusion, one year after that
inauspicious debut, the fans finally had a show to match its initial promise.
Sadly, the rumoured ending, expected to involve the entire cast being driven off
a cliff during an excursion, never materialised. Instead, after 159 episodes,
the final credits rolled on a brave, foolhardy experiment, with lyrics added to
its plink-plonky theme, now entitled “When You Go Away.” The final shots saw cheeky bad-boy Marcus
Tandy and Pilar “You’re gettin’ right up my nose” Moreno ride off into the
sunset, after a failed assassination attempt.
A few weeks ago, someone with far too much time on their
hands uploaded the entire series to YouTube, so it can be preserved in all its
tarnished glory. So treat yourself to a guided tour of Los Barcos. Stop by
Joy’s Bar for a happy hour cocktail, be serenaded by the ageless (and largely
tuneless) Trish Valentine, or try renting one of the eight films in Spain’s
most under-stocked video library. You’ll be sure of a warm welcome, even if
Eldorado was never afforded the same privilege.