Really? I never found that when I watched EE. Saying that, I haven't watched for a while. I find the characters in ED and River City most relatable, although of course the situations they find themselves in( in ED anyway) are ludicrous

That's very honest and not uncommon. As I say, I'm born North, bred South to a Northern (Teesside, County Durham) mother and Southern (North East London) father, both of whom lost their working class, regional accents due to getting school and university scholarships. So have a foot in both camps re North/South divide and also telling somebodys 'class' by accent.

I have had both sides of my extended family and friends state they can't watch certain programmes because they can't understand them, think they are common, rough. So, the prejudice goes both ways and often they can't see it. I remember asling a friend of mine, who is from the same town as Jacqueline Jossa (lauren) and sounds very like her, what she thought Northerners thought of her accent when she said she couldn't stand watching Brookside due to how they talked as it was incomprehensible and horrible.

Equally, many prefer the 'foreign' soap to their region.

Perhaps because of my family background, accents have never bothered me and I genuinely have no preference for any soap due to location.

I do think for some, accent will automatically equate to class and there is a deep rooted knee jerk belief that Northern does mean common and working class when it really doesn't. Anymore than Southern, and especily London, means rich and well to do.

Yep, it's a popular filming location

I dont know any working class people that can afford, or even want to, spend so much time in any of the featured soap pubs.

Yes but they need to have a focal point that everyone goes to.At least in ED anyway, it's s not the same people in the pub every night.

These are the types of things that are fun to bring up, discussed in a tongue in cheek kind of way. Although, I think people take it too seriously. A soap is a core group of people in a small area. In terms of their day to day living, it's never going to be really realistic, not anymore anyway.

I wonder how viable David's shop is? The BnB, the cafe, and the pub I think are more believable due to tourism. I'd imagine tourists aren't very likely to spend much in a shop like that. If they are staying at the BnB, they will eat there, get coffee from the cafe ect. They will probably also be driving around to local tourism spots, eating at other places.

I would have thought Emmerdale is the most middle class, in some aspects. All those character cottages with names? Very urban types might not find those appealing, but many do.

You raise a good point here and it reminded me of when Brookside began, it was literally just about the lives of each family, who occasionally met with neighbours in each others houses or in the street. There was no social setting whatsoever. This is when Brookside was more a gritty, kitchen sink type drama. As time progressed they were forced to add The Parade to allow more character interaction but it had a good run of just being a small cul-de-sac of houses telling the tales of it's residents.

Brookside had a fantastic mix of social classes largely thankful to the time of it's release. The 80's saw more people moving up and down the social ladder due to shifts in the economy. I remember the first episode had a family moving up from a council house and one family moving down from a large country pile!

If, as is the case, Emmerdale is supposed to be a village near the Yorkshire Dales, the chances in "real life" is that it would be full of second homes, incomers, people who've moved from the big cities etc and very few of the original families would be left

That's what's happened to a lot of the Dales villages over the past few decades unfortunately. The people living there would be very definitely middle class and a fair few would probably be at the lower end of upper class too.

This is up for sale in Arncliffe, where Emmerdale was originally filmed back when it started in the 1970s. It's in Littondale.

This two bedroom house is round the corner from where I live.

Prices around here have rocketed in the last 20 years.

Same' s happened around here in the past 10 - 15 years ( and prices are si!iPad)but although we're ve had some gentrification, there's s also a lot of poorer people renting privately - being helped by housing benefit and council tax reduction sometimes. Often Housing Associations buy in new schemes or build their own developments, but even they' re not really cheap to rent Getting a council house around here is like finding the Ark of the Covenant these days. So it's s not that unrealistic to have working class or lower middle class characters living in ED but they' d probably be struggling to pay huge rents. I liked when they brought the Spencers in - they made it clear that Ali was willing to take on the extra cost to move away from the dodgy scheme.

EE and Corrie are in the same ballpark when it comes to class, however if going on characters and situation I'd say EE is the most working class.

It still has the market, where a lot of the characters work, and the characters in general don't dress particularly well. Their accents certainly aren't middle class, although accents are coming to mean less and less. It's generally more 'grimey' (the location, not the people).

Ironically, if EE were to reflect reality, then the houses prices in Albert Square would make most home owners there millionaires. There would also be many more younger middle class people with decent careers and no doubt a fair few hipsters, coffee shops and artisan bakeries.

Selling a few onions on a market stall wouldn't be anyway near enough to pay rent.

Neighbours is pretty middle class, but Home and Away doesn't really reflect anything, it's a group of pretty people living by the beach, in reality they're much more likely to be living in the city.

On the subject of Aussie accents, there's a general rule of thumb that Adelaide sounds the most 'English', then the further east and north up the coast you go through Queensland the accent gets more 'Aussie'. My OH (who's Australian) is also convinced they talk slower the further north you go.