The Soap Multiverse: EastEnders, Coronation Street, Emmerdale, and Brookside as a Shared Universe
Speculative fiction often asks, "What if?" It toys with connections, intersections, and the hidden narratives lurking beneath the surface of the familiar. While this question is usually reserved for sprawling sci-fi epics or superhero franchises, why not apply it to the deeply ingrained worlds of British soap operas? What if EastEnders, Coronation Street, Emmerdale Farm, and Brookside—those perennial fixtures of British television—exist not as separate entities but as interconnected threads within a single, shared universe?
To dismiss this as idle fancy is to underestimate the narrative coherence and cultural weight these soaps have accrued over decades. They are stories of communities—neighbourhoods, villages, streets—and they thrive on conflict, coincidence, and connection. By stepping back, we can begin to see patterns and clues that suggest these fictional locales—Walford, Weatherfield, Emmerdale, and Brookside Close—are part of a vast soap multiverse, united by unseen ties, thematic undercurrents, and a kind of meta-narrative logic.
Common Threads: The Heart of Soap Operas
To argue that these soaps inhabit the same universe is to first understand their shared DNA. All four series are rooted in the microcosms of ordinary life: bustling urban streets, tight-knit rural villages, and middle-class suburban enclaves. They magnify the personal and the local until these everyday dramas—births, betrayals, marriages, and deaths—become as operatic as anything staged at the Royal Albert Hall.
Key tropes underpinning this shared DNA include:
The Pub as Nexus
Each soap has its watering hole, a place that serves as the nerve centre of its community: The Queen Vic in Walford, The Rovers Return in Weatherfield, The Woolpack in Emmerdale, and The Dog in the Pond in Brookside. These pubs are more than mere backdrops; they are narrative engines where secrets are spilled, alliances forged, and dramatic showdowns staged. Could they all belong to the same franchise, owned by a shadowy brewery empire that links the soap worlds? What if the same unseen landlord owns all four establishments, carefully selecting managers who suit the unique character of each community?The Ever-Present Corner Shop
British soaps love a local shop: Minute Mart, Dev’s Corner Shop, David’s Grocery Store—these spaces serve as crossroads where characters collide. The prevalence of these small businesses across all soaps suggests a quiet consistency in the logistics of their universe. What if they're supplied by the same distribution network, or even managed by the same corporate overlords? Imagine an unseen boardroom where strategic decisions are made about which brand of baked beans dominate the shelves in Weatherfield versus Walford.Tragic Coincidences and Intergenerational Cycles
Each soap thrives on the coincidence of past sins revisiting future generations. A father’s long-buried affair in Emmerdale ripples into his children’s lives decades later, just as a forgotten feud in EastEnders resurfaces to destroy a new romance. What if these repeating patterns are part of a shared karmic tapestry? Could an omnipotent force be orchestrating these cyclical dramas, drawing the characters of Coronation Street and Brookside into similar webs of fate?
Geographic Plausibility: Stitching the World Together
At first glance, the physical distances between these fictional locales seem insurmountable. Walford exists somewhere in East London, Weatherfield is firmly rooted in the North West, Emmerdale is nestled in Yorkshire, and Brookside represents Liverpool’s suburban life. But is it so impossible to believe they are part of the same map?
Consider the storytelling sleight of hand: Coronation Street and EastEnders have both dabbled in plotlines where characters venture beyond their usual borders. The 1995 EastEnders-Doctor Who crossover Dimensions in Time hinted at Walford’s place in a broader universe, while Coronation Street has seen its residents holidaying in London. These narrative “breaches” suggest permeability between these worlds.
Moreover, real-world geography has always been an elastic concept in soaps. Characters miraculously travel long distances in minutes when the plot demands it. What if this isn’t an oversight but evidence of a kind of soap-specific physics? The soap multiverse may function as a Möbius strip, where the spatial rules are bent to ensure maximum drama.
Shared Characters and Missing Links
The most compelling evidence for a shared universe lies in the occasional appearance of characters crossing between soaps. While this has typically been dismissed as playful stunt casting, what if these moments are actually canonical?
In 1993, EastEnders’ Michelle Fowler appeared in Grange Hill, another British institution. While this was ostensibly for Comic Relief, could Michelle’s trip to Grange Hill have been a covert mission on behalf of Walford’s meddling Dot Cotton? Similarly, during the 1990s, Julie Goodyear (Bet Lynch) of Coronation Street made a cameo in Brookside. Was this a deliberate hint that Bet, one of Weatherfield’s sharpest minds, had ties to Liverpool’s suburban elite?
Even without explicit crossover events, there are curious overlaps. A closer look at soap genealogy reveals striking similarities in family archetypes. The Mitchells of EastEnders bear more than a passing resemblance to Coronation Street’s Battersbys—a mix of chaos, loyalty, and violence coursing through their veins. Are these clans distantly related, victims of an ancient rift that scattered them across the country?
Meta-Narratives: The Shadowy Puppet Masters
Every shared universe needs a guiding hand, an organizing principle that explains the connections. For the soap multiverse, this could take the form of a shadowy organization or even a literal character pulling strings from behind the scenes.
Imagine a secretive cabal of media tycoons, modeled on the Murdochs of the real world, orchestrating events in these communities to boost their ratings. A whisper in Peggy Mitchell’s ear in EastEnders sparks a feud that echoes in Coronation Street a year later. A strategic fire in Brookside Close provides inspiration for a similar disaster in Emmerdale. These aren’t coincidences—they’re deliberate manipulations designed to maximize drama.
Or perhaps the unifying figure is something more mythic. Dot Cotton, with her omnipresent cigarette and near-religious devotion to morality, could be a kind of soap opera oracle, quietly steering events across all four soaps. Could it be that she made clandestine visits to the Rovers Return or the Woolpack in her youth, leaving behind cryptic advice that shaped the lives of other characters?
The Endgame: Toward a Soap Opera Convergence
If these soaps are indeed part of a shared universe, the natural question becomes: what is the endgame? The Marvel Cinematic Universe built toward Avengers: Endgame, a culmination of its interwoven narratives. What might a similar convergence look like for British soaps?
A natural disaster—an apocalyptic flood, perhaps—forces the residents of Walford, Weatherfield, Emmerdale, and Brookside to converge on neutral ground. New alliances form as Peggy Mitchell and Bet Lynch square off, while Ian Beale strikes up an unlikely partnership with Brookside’s Jimmy Corkhill. The soap multiverse would collapse into a single timeline, a sprawling epic that blends the grit of EastEnders, the warmth of Coronation Street, the pastoral drama of Emmerdale, and the bold experimentation of Brookside.
This is, of course, speculative fiction. But isn’t that what soaps are, at their core? Speculations on life, distilled into heightened emotion and narrative compression. To imagine EastEnders, Coronation Street, Emmerdale, and Brookside as part of a shared universe is to recognize the interconnectedness of their themes, characters, and stories. It’s a tribute to the soap opera’s enduring power to reflect the messy, entangled realities of life—even when that life is fictional.
