Compact (TV series)

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Compact was a British television soap opera shown by the BBC between 1962 and 1965. The series was created by Hazel Adair and Peter Ling who later went on to devise Crossroads.

In comparison to the kitchen sink realism of Coronation Street, Compact was a distinctly more middle-class serial, set in the more "sophisticated" arena of magazine publishing. In fact, one could argue that given its workplace setting, Compact was the first "avarice" soap, taking the viewer into the business world, and aligning the professional lives of the characters with more personal storylines.

The show was scheduled for broadcast on Tuesdays and Thursdays, thus avoiding a clash with ITV's Coronation Street on Mondays and Wednesdays.

When Compact began, the editor was a woman, yet it wasn't long before she was replaced by Ian Harmon (Ronald Allen) the son of the magazine's editor.

Morris Barry, a some-time actor and BBC director - he directed several Doctor Who stories in the 1960s - took over as producer and was given a brief to spice the series up in view of the criticisms it had received from the national press. Although there were token protestations about a suicide using a gas fire, and scenes of children smoking drugs, both critics and the public remained indifferent to the show^{[citation needed]}, and the BBC, never comfortable with the concept of soap opera (at the time they considered it to be the realm of independent television), quietly dropped the series.

Ronald Allen would go on to star in ATV soap opera Crossroads from 1969 to 1985. Marcia Ashton who played Lily went on to appear in Brookside many years later. The director David Giles went on to have a highly distinguished television career.

Much of the series no longer exists in the BBC archive due to the corporation's wiping policy of the era.