Compact (TV series)

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 together went on to devise Crossroads.

In comparison to the kitchen sink realism of Coronation Street, Compact was a distinctly middle-class serial, set in the more "sophisticated" arena of magazine publishing. An early "avarice" soap, it took the viewer into the business workplace, and aligned 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 owner.

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 protestations about a suicide using a gas fire, and scenes of children smoking drugs, both critics and the public remained indifferent to the show, 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 went on to star in ATV soap opera Crossroads from 1969 to 1985. Marcia Ashton, who played Lily, appeared in Brookside many years later. Carmen Silvera played the role of Madame Edith Artois in the British sitcom 'Allo 'Allo from 1982 to 1992. The director David Giles went on to have a highly distinguished television career.

Only a handful of episodes exist in the BBC archive: there are in fact as few as four surviving episodes out of the original run of 373. (See Wiping)

External links

• Action TV
• British Film Institute Screen Online
• Compact at the Internet Movie Database