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
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