Woe is Echo Beach

As a second series looks increasingly unlikely, Echo Beach viewers are giving their opinions on what's gone wrong. On the Echo Beach Fan Club forums member Jess gives three main reasons as to why Echo Beach isn't succeeding as well with audiences as it could be: the lack of clarity, the scheduling and the miscasting of Martine McCutcheon:

Echo Beach sent mixed messages throughout the series. Was it really supposed to be a drama to be taken seriously, or was it intended to be an amusing spinoff from the real comedy? The answer is that it veers between both and unfortunately, the cast were of the belief that it was the former. The show should have been definitively pitched either as a serious drama (in which case it should have run to an hour, and MW should have aired afterwards) or as second fiddle to MW (in which case it should have been ten times' more preposterous).

This is a view echoed all over the place on Echo Beach-related sites. On Echo Beach's IDMB page, reviewer oelbr1 writes:

In some aspects, it tries to hard to be taken seriously to really be considered a parody; some scenes were actually acted out well, and the characters appeared to be quite clearly defined, with the potential to develop into, as one of the writers on Moving Wallpaper put it, into "real, breathing people".

In others, the nature of the show was less clear. Some terrible attempts at West Country accents and an overdose on beautiful looking people hanging around in skimpy clothing, teamed with the poor quality of acting (*ahem* Martine McCutchon, Jason Donovan) and mediocre plot lines left you confused, wondering, "So, is this a parody or not?"

Over at the Digital Spy forums, user BB-mega-addict comments:

I'm quite surprised that someone like Tony Jordan has made such a big mistake with a series. They are trying to make the show a parody of a soap as well as make it an interesting drams and it just isn't working. They should have decided whether they wanted a drama or a parody.

If the fans - or at least the regular viewers - are confused and think things should be clearer, then Echo Beach has a problem. One could claim it is like Shakespeare's "problem" plays, neither comedy nor tragedy. But let's face it, Mark and Susan Penwarden are hardly Angelo and Isabella.

To succeed in its current form, Echo Beach needs to find some kind of niche, and possibly one that isn't there yet. It is somewhat remeniscent of Eldorado, but that had a massive cast and a much longer run - and even when it finally built up a respectable viewership it was axed. There are also shades of the very early days of Neighbours and Home & Away, but those shows chose to evolve away from their original, more adult-led melodrama. And to some extent it is actually crippled by Moving Wallpaper, because as long as that hold the position of comedy mock-reality drama with all The Office, Alan Partridge and Absolute Power nuances and references, Echo Beach is left somewhat high and dry.

Then another problem is the cast. Whether they've signed up for a second series or not, the poor reviews are going to make many of them think twice. Even many of the lesser-known younger cast are already involved in other, high profile projects.

But it was a brave and important move to make this experimental dual-show. Given it can take several series for audiences to warm to a show, it seems wasteful to axe it as a knee jerk reaction. But given the size of the overhaul it would need in a second series to evolve past a kind of a quirky 30-minute sidecar to Moving Wallpaper, one can understand why ITV may feel it's easier to start again from scratch.

Echo Beach 107 review

Jason Donovan is a very harried man. He's rushing all over the place having awkward conversations and trying to make sure that his illegitimate son didn't sleep with Hannah Lederer's daughter and spawn a three-headed inbred. However they "just talked all night", as a coy and smirking girly-pink-shirt-clad Jimmy tells Charlie in the Jolly Roger pub:



Narinder is supposed to have had a tarty makeover this episode. She looks exactly the same but in hotpants. This is supposed to be a dramatic change. What would be a welcome change would be an adenoidectomy so we could hear her voice not coming out of her nose for a change.

Failed Lolita failed arsonist wannabe superbitch Grace has gone soft. Which is a shame, because she and Ian present one of the few glimpses of likely chemistry among the entire cast. And she can actually act, even if he can't. And it would be an enjoyably nostlagic echo of the coupling of Mike from Neighbours and Sophie from Home & Away.

Particularly if Ian also managed to die like Mike did. Crashing into the speeding orange campervan hotwired by a paralytic Fin and Mrs McCluskey. These two went on a date this week but kindly spared us from explicit geriatric passion. Fin manages to make his mouth turn down in exactly the same arc as the brim of his baseball hat.



Awful authoress Angela continues to be unspeakably awful. She also continues to look considerably older than Susan Penwarden.

Talking of the Penwardens, Mark Penwarden is wearing an unfortunate top that can only be described as "too tight across the bust". He's a fairly fit and fairly skinny man but the top in the suspicious-phone-call-scene with Susan gives him moobs.

Critics' reviews - 15th Feb 2008

Jane Simon, The Mirror:

There's no need to use Jason or Martine's character names because in this show you see household names playing somebody. Unless the actor once played a character that's more famous than they are.

So if I tell you that tonight Mike Baldwin and Mrs McClusky go on a date, you'll know who I mean. And then shudder at the image that pops into your head.

Falling viewing figures

A bad rap from MSN Entertainment, which has compared Echo Beach to other TV "high profile failures". Most weirdly, Eldorado doesn't make their gallery of examples:

Despite the presence of Martine McCutcheon and Jason Donovan, viewers are deserting spoof soap Echo Beach in droves. Sometimes hype just isn't enough.

Since Echo Beach's 5m debut, it has been losing viewers week-on-week and not even the respectable lead-in from sister show Moving Wallpaper has been enough to sustain interest.

Echo Beach "fails to resonate"

Bad news for Echo Beach from Dave West, DigitalSpy:

A poor audience for Echo Beach made ITV1 the least watched terrestrial channel in its slot on Friday.

The new soap drew just 2.3m or 10% at 9.30pm to trail last year's slot average of 4.3m by some way, according to viewing figures. Its sixth outing was the lowest after successive drops from a 5m (21.9%) debut.

Its exact figure of 2,336,000 was pipped to fourth place by NCIS on Five, which made 2,349,000 during the half hour.

Critics' reviews - 8th Feb 2008

Mark Wright, The Stage:

Unfortunately, Echo Beach is anything but fun. Dull, plodding and badly acted. Oh well, it was worth a try.

Echo Beach 106 review

Sometimes you witness something so gruesome it makes you want to gouge your own eyes out with a rusty spork. The scene played out in this week's Echo Beach between Jason Donovan and Hannah Lederer's daughter - talking in an icklegirlyvoice about being ready to "ride a bike" or not - was so excruciating it was also necessary to hack out your eardrums with a rusty chainsaw.



So just to recap Episode 6: Jimmy gets mad with Susan for kissing Jason Donovan; Hannah Lederer's daughter gets a new bikini; Mark and Fin fight; Jimmy and Hannah Lederer's daughter flirt; Jason Donovan and Hannah Lederer's daughter have the unspeakable (but sadly all too spoken) abovementioned conversation; Susan and Awful Angela chat; Brae and Jackie flirt; Jimmy and Grace fight; Jason Donovan and Jimmy chat; Jason Donovan and Fin talk; Jackie and Ian talk; Narinder and Charlie flirt; Susan and Grace talk; Brae and Jackie flirt more; Jimmy and Hannah Lederer's daughter flirt and talk and snog; Brae and Jackie drink; etc etc.

Anyone else spotting the woefully dreary pattern here? There doesn't seem to be a single three-way conversation going on in the entire episode, apart from a bit of dreary multipart muttering in the bar with Ivy. Is the Echo Beach budget so limited they can only use one camera? Or haven't the writers progressed past "Screenwriting 101 - The Art of the Duologue"? It's just an endless stream of gruesome twosomes. And by god are some of them gruesome this week.

The other week it was suprising to find out that Charlie is apparently related to Fin. And now it is even more astonishing to disover that that Fin is apparently supposed to suffer from learning difficulties or dementia or such like. We know Fin is supposed to be "old" (since he's the only male character aged over 40 in the entire cast) but is he supposed to have reached his second childhood? Because suddenly he's playing a stunning fusion of the yokel village idiot and Rainman:



Anyway Hannah Lederer's daughter ending up riding Jimmy's bike, all the while managing to talk through her nose. Whether it was supposed to be figurative or not doesn't really matter. Seeing Jason Donovan rushing around doing "frantic angst" was treat enough.

Susan Penwarden

Susan Penwarden is clearly headed for an episode of Ricki Lake: Grandmoms at 25. Played by Tiffany-from-Eastenders, aka Martine McCutcheon, she is around thirty and has two late teenaged children.

She is "old Cornwall" and speaks with a strong cockney accent.

Susan had some sort of affair with Jason Donovan many years ago, presumably in his pre-drugs Stock Aitken & Waterman good old days when everyone had Smash Hits posters of him up pinned up in their bedrooms. But for some reason she ended up with Evil Hugo Speer, probably because he had more money and better wheels than Jason's orange combi van. Despite the money, Susan's clothes appear to come from one of those shops - generally located next to downmarket supermarkets - called "Mode Fashion" or "Fashion Boutique" that sell anything but. Mind you this is Cornwall. The only knickers on sale in Falmouth Marks & Spencers are the up-to-the-chin down-to-the-knees bloomer contraptions that people's grandmothers wore early last century.

So no wonder that Susan spends much of her time sitting at her dressing table making anguished expressions in the mirror, walking on the beach in her wretched Oxfam rejects looking anguished, and having anguished conversations with Jason Donovan. They managed to kiss just a couple of episodes in - a distinctly flaccid event.

Susan's newbestfriend is an awful author called Angela, who spends her time delving into Susan's secrets and marital unhappiness while flirting with Jason Donovan herself. Angela will probably attempt to bed Susan's son once she finds out he is Jason Donovan's lovechild.

Echo Beach 105 review

Well that was something of a shock - it turns out that geek-boy Charlie is Mike Baldwin's grandson. Did anyone else spot this in an earlier episode? What a revelation, that the two of the most least interesting characters are related.

Other that that, more glorious tears from failed-Lolita failed-manslaughteress Grace, racked with guilt after trying to flame-broil her idol. Father Mark suggests fleeing to Spain. The UK and Spain actually re-ratified their extradition treaty in 1985 and European arrest warrants came into force in 2004, but no matter. Perhaps Mark is planning to hide out on the set of Eldorado? The perfect camouflage, surely, for any ropey soap actor.



Adding to the Single White Female plotline theory, awful author Angela is trying to flirt with Jason Donovan. It comes across more as menacing than alluring. Bear in mind that Angela already knows that her newbestfriend Susan Penwarden still carries a torch for Jason: "the eyes... they never lie." So Angela is clearly up to something demonic. She has another good digging and stirring session later on with Susan over Susan's marriage.

There is a lot of dreary hospital bedside action going on in this episode. The starring role is taken by Susan Penwarden's hair. Why does she have so much hair, and why does it hang down over her entire body like outsize spaniel ears, or a glossier version of Cousin It's hair cloak? Could it not be pinned up into a nice neat frumpy bun or something, to at least help us with the illusion that she wasn't Cornwall's youngest ever pre-teen mum.

Some of the cringiest, dreariest dialogue ever between whiny-voiced Narinder and geek-boy Charlie. Why oh why couldn't these two have been gently blown up in last week's convenient caravan explosion?

Jimmy finally asks Helen Lederer's daughter out. Given that this is no longer 1991 and Echo Beach airs on ITV not the prudish Beeb, does that mean we will actually see this relationship develop? Unlike Glen and Lucy Robinson who ended up on the cutting room floor rather than beamed into UK homes.

Brae needs a haircut. He also needs to spend less time weeping in the arms of Jason Donovan. You can already hear the slash-fic writers sharpening their nibs.

And there's more hideous anti-chemistry between Susan Penwarden and Jason Donovan. Even some tawdrily sentimental music strumming up can't emulsify this coupling.

Tabloid exposure for Echo Beach

Stories like this - Martine is Echo Beach diva - The Sun - are great, because they are generating vital hype about Echo Beach. The more real life behind-the-scenes drama and tension, the more people will be tempted to watch:

STROPPY Martine McCutcheon has made waves on the set of my new favourite TV trash treat Echo Beach with an outrageous diva moment.

Celebrity snapper Nicky Johnston travelled hundreds of miles to do a publicity shoot with the ITV1 surfing soap’s cast on location in Cornwall.

But it had to be cancelled when ex-EastEnder Martine, 31, right, who plays Susan, refused to leave her caravan because it was too COLD. Our source says: “Everyone else was there waiting.”

Martine’s diva reputation has been sent up in TV comedy drama Moving Wallpaper, which is about the making of Echo Beach.

What we'll probably start to see more of soon is profiles on the young female actresses. And by profiles is meant scantily clad underwear photoshoots for the nation's favourite "family newspapers" such as The Sun and The Mirror, as well as the seedier men's "lifestyle" magazines. It may be that some of the young cast are initially disinclined to go the lad's-mag-slag route, but we'll see. Expect some former high school boyfriends and girlfriends to get dredged up to tell us all about their wondrous first loves.

A second series?

This sounds promising, Martine McCutcheon is "thrilled" with Echo Beach:

Martine McCutcheon has declared that she is delighted with the reception of her new TV show, Moving Wallpaper/Echo Beach.

Speaking at the South Bank Show Awards, she said: "I'm really thrilled and I know that ITV are really happy with it.

"Apparently they're really happy with the audience that they've reached which is a younger audience. I think they're just waiting for it to go from strength to strength hopefully."

In the soap Echo Beach, Martine plays housewife Susan Penwarden and the actress revealed she can't wait to go back to film more.

"We just all want to film together again because we absolutely genuinely got on like a house on fire in Cornwall," she said."

Does this mean a probable second series?

Echo Beach 104 review

Did anyone else sit through this episode with an increasing sense of terror about the prospect of Jason Donovan's pallid buttocks shining in the Polnarren moonlight?

Thanks to god and/or the scriptwriters, they stayed covered up. Anyone who ever did science GCSE and remembers the bitter disappointment when their friend manages a rainbow mushroom cloud, but their acids and things don't react properly and just sit limply in a test tube, will relate to the chemistry demonstrated here:




When it comes to contemporary drama, sitcoms and YouTube, the question often arises: "is this supposed to be funny?" This is an absolutely pointless question. Either something is funny or it isn't, it doesn't matter whether it was supposed to be. And this was an episode filled with rivers of tears and torrents of laughter. Tears of teen angst flood from the eyesockets of wannabe-Lolita Grace as she fails to seduce the male Hollyoaks caravan-dweller in a turquoise bra and transparent gold top. Laughter roars forth from us at her plight.

Grace: a clue. There's almost certainly a reason he looks like a gay Damon Albarn. We know he's not Damon Albarn, so add up your two plus two and make the thirteen-and-and-half that everyone else's SoapPlot caculator has managed to compute.

Because there don't currently appear to be any gay characters in Polnarren. We know Jason Donovan isn't gay. We definitely know that Jason Donovan isn't gay. Jason Donovan's son looks gay, but appears to be lusting after the female caravan-dweller. The dark-haired geek friend of Susan's son may as well be gay, but isn't (yet). Susie Amy looks the likeliest bet, in a Single White Female psycho-killer sort of a way.




Yay! Now that's a mushroom cloud.

Critics' reviews - 27th Jan 2008

AA Gill, The Times:

And Echo Beach is just about Corn-wall and kids – who gives a toss about them? It’s like a cross between Hollyoaks and Eldorado, on the set from Crossroads. My guess is that everyone will get fed up with the joke and bin it, or maybe they’ll bin Echo Beach and keep Moving Wallpaper as a sitcom about a soap that doesn’t exist.

Echo Beach 103 review

What is Susan Penwarden/Tiffany-from-Eastenders/Martine McCutcheon doing at the end of episode three? Is she uncovering a grave or digging for buried treasure? Or is she trying to face Mecca? Someone suggested her and Jason's dead baby is buried there, which would be gruesome but rather disappointing. After all, Jason is blond and Susan's son is blond and two plus two always makes about seventeen in soap terms.

Either way this was a woefully dull episode. There were far too many drawn out teen dating shenanigans. That's what drove Neighbours and Home & Away downhill, when the animals took over the farm and kitchen sink melodrama was cast aside in favour of teen-soap. We need adult action featuring Mike Baldwin and Mrs McCluskey. Only not actual adult action, if you get my drift. Hugo Speers and half (or all) of the Hollyoaks couple might be a likelier start for that.

Many critics have commented on Jason Donovan's woeful British accent ("the bizarre clipped upper-class tones of a Second World War pilot"). Here's a clip:




Competing for most excruciating moment this week are two choice performances. The first is Helen Lederer's daughter's laugh:


Truly this is gruesome. It's obviously supposed to be gruesome, but it's gruesome gruesome. It also doesn't help that her accent is even more painful than Gwyneth Paltrow's in Sliding Doors. And just how did Jason Donovan make enough cash to send her to Roedean? Maybe his conveniently dead wife was a Duchess.


Susie Amy's attempt at being Miss Marple is the second contender. Susie Amy already has a terrifying, stalker-like character with apparent designs on Susan Penwarden. She's also writing what sounds like the worst romance since Dame Sally Markham transcribed the Bible.



Since the very first hammy caveman invented the concept of drama, has a line ever been delivered in such a sinister tone? It makes Hannibal Lecter sound like the Care Bears.

Critics' reviews - 17th Jan 2008

Paul English, Daily Record:

There's a teenage soundtrack and beach action one minute, then scenes with OAPs saying "arrr" in the pub. And while the kids are frisky and sun-kissed, the adults are stiff and regionalised.
That said, it was great to see Grange Hill head Mrs McCluskey again. I'd wondered what she was up to ... making mutineers walk the plank, from the sound of things. All she was missing was the wooden leg and parrot.

Critics' reviews - 15th Jan 2008

Shellyvision, The Mirror:

Some of the groovy young surf kids (like Ed Speleers as Jimmy) make the biggest bimbos in Hollyoaks look like Meryl Streep.

The soundtrack has more rubbish Britpop than Jamie Oliver's CD collection and there is zero chemistry between Donovan and McCutcheon, who - as Nancy Weeks says in Moving Wallpaper - look like the result of "the cynical casting stunt it is".

McCutcheon trundles around as if she's on castors, smiling benignly like the new Noel Gordon. As for Donovan, whether he is meant to be so godawful is anyone's guess.

His accent - or accents - are abysmal. He has three: his laidback "Nodding Hill" drawl, traces of his native Aussie and, mostly, the bizarre clipped upper-class tones of a Second World War pilot.

Dek Hogan, Digital Spy:

If the idea was to make a terrible soap to tie in with the comedy then it's just not bad enough to be funny. If the idea was to produce something good they've failed there too. Perhaps the problem is that no one has told the cast what it's actually supposed to be.

Jason Donovan appears to be playing it straight and tragically he seems to be the best thing in it, which speaks volumes. Johnny Briggs has a Cornish accent that he seems to have picked up from watching creaky old black and white pirate movies, while a similarly bad accent comes from the pub landlady – Bridget the midget from early Grange Hill.

Critics' reviews - 13th Jan 2008

Kevin O'Sullivan, Sunday Mirror:

Strikingly bad acting, drearily predictable plot lines, a hopeless lack of realism... Echo Beach is just like a normal soap.
But there's a difference. This one is supposed to be rubbish. Or at least I think it is. Set in a kind of Cornish Hollyoaks-on-Sea, ITV's sizzling saga of sand, sex and surfing is one half of an innovative new double act.

Meanwhile, it's great to see that sprightly Johnny Briggs has lost none of his legendary thespian skills. He plays oldfashioned caravan park boss Fin Morgan (Mike Baldwin in overalls and a baseball cap), whose horrid holiday camp is threatened by developers. But timberland Johnny isn't the only abysmal actor by the sea. As controversial cafe owner Daniel Marrack, Jason Donovan speaks with an agonisingly slow, weirdly posh Aussie-Brit accent and is truly terrible. Presumably, this is a deliberate attempt to create that authentic soap effect.

Hermione Eyre, The Independent:

And so Echo Beach begins, full of soaring aerial shots of Cornwall and trendy music. It would have been tempting to make the show very obviously creaky, à la Acorn Antiques, but they've resisted that and made something more unsettling and subversive. Echo Beach is entirely believable as a soap, but the cynical goggles you've acquired from the first half mean you see through it instantly. It's like watching Hollyoaks using the cranium of Kevin Lygo as opera glasses.

Kathryn Flett, The Observer:

the heroically naff Echo Beach (played with a combination of knowing delight by the soap veterans and appropriately wide-eyed enthusiasm from the newbies)

Polly Vernon, The Observer:

Echo Beach (which stars Martine McCutcheon, Jason Donovan and Hugo Speer) is a teen/adult crossover drama, a British OC if you will, with added soul and post-watershed sensibilities

Critics' reviews - 11th Jan 2008

Sam Wollaston, The Guardian:

Echo Beach is pretty standard soap fare. We're in Cornwall, there's a pub, hordes of young attractive surfer totty, love rivals, skeletons in every cupboard, family feuds, stereotypes, an ethnic quota, and a baited hook at the end of the episode to snare you for the next. A couple of real former soap stars - Jason Donovan and Martine McCutcheon - have even washed up on Echo Beach.

Robert Hanks, The Independent:

As for Echo Beach itself... There was some fun to be had from spotting, in the opening scenes, how the scenarios set up in Moving Wallpaper played out. When Jason Donovan, returning to Cornwall after years in exile, sighed over the wrecked condition of the beach café he'd just bought, we knew that it was because most of the scenery budget had gone on Jonathan Pope's marble-lined en suite shower. When a customer in the pub asked for a brandy and soda, we knew that the actress had got a line to speak because she had given Jonathan a blow job, and we knew that the barmaid serving her was called Narinder because ITV needs to meet its ethnic quotas (as the head of continuing drama instructed Jonathan: "The pressure's off black, but the channel's still struggling on Asian"). But as it continued, the hard truth dawned that watching a wooden and derivative soap isn't necessarily more fun just because its intentions are satirical. It needs to be either a bit more Acorn Antiques or a bit more Dynasty.

Echo Beach 102 review

Those that remember the youth quartet of Ramsay Street:

Scott (blond)
Charlene (curly blonde)
Mike (dark)
Jane (straight blonde)

will be delighted by a similar foursome here:

Susan Penwarden's son (blond)
Helen Lederer's daughter (curly blonde)
Jason Donovan's son (dark)
Susan Penwarden's daughter (straight blonde)

And it doesn't really matter who goes after who, because there's always a Hard Hitting Incest Storyline if the family trees get mixed up.

There's also a spare and quite irritating dark haired bloke (Glenn Robinson? Henry Ramsay?) floating around, and a random Hollyoaks couple who are running the Summer Bay caravan park. And an Asian girl with a mildly irritating voice. But the scriptwriters don't hold back on dealing these drama school graduettes some gripping dialogue, allowing them to fully display their vastly impressive acting range:



Evil is Afoot at the caravan park, which from the wideshot looks little better than a prisoner of war camp comprised of white portacabins:



Bulldozing it would be an act of mercy.

Echo Beach 101 review

What a marvellous treat: a step back in time to the golden era of Neighbours in its proper children-were-children and adults-were-adults suburban melodrama days.

Only this is "Polnarren", a Cornish village that would very much like to be Summer Bay/Palm Beach but sadly lacks any inhabitants with even an E-grade GCSE in surfing. And let's face it, we all know what British summers are really like. No amount of upping the colour saturation on Polnarren beach to fluorescent yellow can disguise the grizzled skies.

Susan Penwarden, better known as Tiffany from Eastenders, appears to be on a fairground ride or something in the opening titles. This does nothing to dispel perceptions that she gave birth to two strapping teenagers aged about 12, sired by Hugo Speers. What also doesn't help is having Susie Amy hanging around, who looks a perfectly-preserved late-thirties despite her claims to a 1980s birthdate.

In the local pub, where Mrs McCluskey is now works behind the bar, things are even more confusing. There's nothing strange about a London schoolmistress choosing to spend her retirement in Cornwall, but she has also picked up a Cornish accent over the years. As has Mike Baldwin, who surely only departed the North West (and this earth) a few months ago? Adding to the accent mayhem is Jason Donovan's bizarre British twang - is he hoping to get his children into Eton? - which inspires distinctly Australian vowels from chirpy cockney "Old Cornwall" Susan Penwarden in the followingly exquisitely awful exchange:

Jason:		I went all around the world in my head, and in the end it was the kids who made me realise I belong hyah.
Susan:		Once maybe, but not naow.

Critics' reviews - 10th Jan 2008

Anna Pickard, The Guardian:

Jason and Martine are currently playing the most excrutiating scene I've ever seen either of them in, and that's saying something. However, I don't think it's on purpose. I really don't.