Sleepless in Soapland

Soap opera and family go together like . . . well, Christmas and family. The combinations make for seasonal soaperiences of heightened reality, chock-a-block with crises, trauma and tension in a concentrated double dose. Real life Christmas features tensions big and small; in Soapland's ratings-led environment they are magnified.

Christmases past in Soapland have featured fires (Brookside), suicide attempts (Fair City's Lorraine last year, EastEnders's Irish lad, Aidan, Corrie's Ken), mental breakdown (EastEnders's late Arfur after the Christmas fund incident in 1986, and again in 1995 in prison), family breakdown (most of them, most Christmases), people sleeping with people they shouldn't (ditto), gobsmacking and far-reaching revelations (ditto).

Expect this year to offer a similar diet of trauma along with the turkey, but with the usual life-affirming, family-affirming conclusions. It's like a game of snakes and ladders - and the snakes are always the most interesting.

In Albert Square, things are hotting up among the snakes for the festive season - hot being the operative word for the Mitchell brothers of East- Enders, who can both number arson among their past activities. They fit in well with the rest of the Albert Square crowd, most of whom seem to be criminals of one kind or another. Alco Phil, who breathes rather than speaks all his dialogue, will be hoping to spend some time with estranged wife Kaff (taking a break from her caff), while Graunt is unlikely to have everything "sawted" with his wife Tiffany.

Presiding at the Vic will be gangster George's moll and mother of all the Mitchells, Peggy, played by Barbara Windsor (who had a slightly similar role with real-life snakes in her youth).

Featuring strongly this Christmas will be Cindy, who won much sympathy from the public a while back by hiring a hitman to rub out her whining husband, Ian. Unhappily, the plot failed, and Christmas Day should see the battling Beales locked in mortal combat once again.

Not to be outdone in the dastardly deeds league by the Cockney geezers, the two most notorious Liverpool scallies in Brookside, Barry Grant and Jimmy Corkhill, are also at each other's throats. The cause of all the ructions is Jimmy's daughter Lindsay - "Are Linds" - who is two-timing her fiance Peter with demonic Barry, who has already murdered several people. Barry, who wears a pained expression and an enormous and, frankly, ridiculous coat - three sizes too big for him, and belted like a Beverly Hillbilly - is encouraging Are Linds in her budding stage career as a Cher impersonator (she actually looks more like Olive Oyl) and suspicions are aroused by the lavishness of his presents to her on Christmas Day.

Jimmy himself has undergone a transformation in recent months, from smack dealer and burglar to respected teacher (admittedly with fake qualifications) and concerned parent. But then, such transformations are not rare in Soapland - I'm not surprised Are Linds has gone off hairdresser Peter - he started out in the series as camp as Butlins and then plot exigencies transmogrified him into the boring boy-next-door type. Perhaps she's worried he might come over all Julian Clary again.

Meanwhile, muttering Mick has had a short-term reprieve from being banged up for the mercy-killing of his mother-in-law. If he mumbles in court the way he mumbles all the rest of his lines, he won't have much chance of his defence being deciphered.

Aside from a birthday party, it will be a quiet Christmas for Ron Dicko - as daughter Jacqui continually says, "me dad's heart's knackered". Jacqui, meanwhile, is busy trying to impregnate herself so that she can have a surrogate baby for the Farnhams (she needs their money to pay Barry for seeing off extortionist Callum. Keep up, can't you?). Hopefully we will be spared more scenes of Suzannah Farnham standing outside their bedroom door telling Max to hurry up with his sperm so she can rush it over to Jacqui. Visitors to Chez Dicko would be well-advised to steer clear of the turkey-baster.

Whatever about Mick and Baz ending up in jail, over in Glenroe it looks like Dick won't be banged up for the season for torching his factory, however much "cheeky-article" Michelle's on-again off-again squeeze, the detective, might try. Miley might end up in jail (for the second time, as his daddy Dinny points out, following his experiences with the ol' bill in London), if he can't curb his peculiar compulsion to break into Dinny's water pump-house. Well holy God. Of course new barman Ray has already been in the clanger - "and it wasn't for good behaviour either" as his brother perceptively pointed out.

But the nearest we're likely to get to violence in Glenroe would be a lynch-mob reaction at Mary and Dick's Christmas party to the book by Mister Deveraux - the ex-priest who still seems to be hanging around his old parish in a most unlikely way. Unlikely, too, is the ex-cleric's potboiler, supposedly full of identifiable locals, which has caused such scandal - if it is a true reflection of life in Glenroe, it may have likeable characters but it must have a pretty slow-moving plot.

Incidentally, is it a coincidence that in both Fair City and Glenroe a priest or ex-priest is in a fledgling relationship with a woman? In Fair City over the Christmas, pub landlady Kay McCoy gets a surprise card and meets up with Father Malachy when he's home from the missions, but they are, in fact, being spied on. There seems to be plenty of babies around for the crib in Carrickstown. Paul hopes to see his new baby Oisin and estranged wife Nicola even though he is now shacked up with Helen and their (slightly older) baby. And there's the return of Hannah's baby - a child she had before she married, and thought was dead. Following a ridiculous build-up where he was apparently "stalking" her, the reunion between Hannah and her son as a sensitive handling of a subject close to the bone of the Irish experience. Mind you, Hannah (Pat Leavy) looks only be a few years older than her son.

Over in Coronation Street, the world's unlikeliest sex god, Are Kev, has returned to Sally to spend Christmas with her and the children. Presumably their dinner will be Kev's staple diet of pie and chips, with perhaps a sprig of festive holly on the pie. (Are Kev clearly doesn't believe that sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander as far as extra-marital relationships are concerned.) If Sal had only stuck with dishpot mechanic Chris he might have more incentive to stick around, and then we'd have at least one acceptable man on the street, which has always been a matriarchy.

Look at them - Les Battersby leching at Samantha and boasting how his wife Janice's "bits are all in working order". Most women's nightmare would be an evening out with Ken Barlow (who must be eligible for his bus pass at this stage), with his wan, sickly smile and dictionary of cliches, but these days he's Alec Gilroy's star turn at the escort agency. Perhaps he'll replace Are Kevin as Weatherfield's sex machine. That's if Ken can keep up (ahem) the workload, what with Jack also seeking to become a sex worker for Alec.

One man in the Street who will not go short of Christmas dinner will be Jon - former pilot, super tie-salesman and double life-liver. He'd need to fast for a week so that he can credibly zoom between wife and family and Deardree (in the ill-gotten posh house) on the big day, consuming two meals in the process. How this modern-day Walter Mitty, deftly played by Owen Aaronovitch, juggles his commitments at Christmas should be one of the highlights of the day's viewing. When his bubble finally does burst and he is found out, Dear-dree's permanently wide-open eyes will presumably burst too, along with her neck snapping from the constant strain of over-stretching.

Still, it's not all doom, gloom and deception in Soapland during the run-up to Christmas. One man who should be very happy is Coronation Street's Fred Elliott, the enormous master butcher with the chillingly vast display of gleaming false teeth, who, superbly played by John Savident, can switch with ease from comic to sinister to grasping. Beef may be off the menu and lamb getting the cold shoulder, but "Get out there, Ashley lad, and sell them turkeys - I say, sell them turkeys!"

There is an hour-long Fair City on Christmas Day (RTE 1, 7.25 p.m.); Coronation Street, Christmas Day (RTE 1, 6.05 p.m. and UTV 7 p.m.); Brookside's feature length episode is on St Stephen's Day (Channel 4, 6.30 p.m.); EastEnders, Christmas Day (BBC 1, 8.30 p.m.) and St Stephen's Day, 7.40 p.m.); Glenroe, Sunday 28th, (RTE 1, 8 p.m.)