I’M worried. Not just about Brexit terms, or the possibility the DUP terms and conditions may insist line-dancing be banned (given Ian Paisley once declared it “sinful, with its sexual gestures”) .

No, soap television is in danger of going down the plughole. Today, audiences of even million are tuning in each night to watch the likes of Coronation Street and EastEnders hoping to see an Alan Bennett-like insight into a heightened version of ordinary life. But instead, they are being pumped full of public information material.

The current Street theme, for example, is grooming (a theme already been covered in EastEnders.) Meanwhile, River City viewers are being sedated with a story about addiction to prescription drugs. In recent times we’ve been overwhelmed with tales of adult literacy, Alzheimer’s, bullying and breast cancer.

It’s not to say these messages aren’t important, or politically correct but they’re in the wrong hands. Continuing drama shouldn’t be a vehicle for Public Information crusades. “If you have been affected by this programme, please call . . .”

And it’s lazy writing. Story-liners are pillaging newspapers to come up with script ideas. Television should be shaping ideas. Not nicking them. Characters should evolve, not re-configured to fit in with the current social crises. And where there’s a public information storyline, there’s a blindingly obvious guarantee of a happy ending.

Here’s an excerpt from the first episode of Coronation Street in 1960, a year when kitchen sink dramas such as Saturday Night and Sunday Morning reflected the period and its social mores.

The Street’s elder stateswoman Ena Sharples walks into the corner shop and proceeds to play mind games with new owner, Florrie.

Ena: What’s your place of worship?

Florrie: I don’t really know much about it.

Ena: I know. C of E.

Florrie: Oh, I wouldn’t say I was anything really.

Ena: Oh, it’s like me sister’s husband. You know, he were made head of plumbing where they live and it gave her ideas. She said “We’re civic dignitaries now and we must head for t’church.” Within a week they were received, christened and confirmed, and within a fortnight she was sitting up all night sewing surplices. I’ll take a packet of baking powder.”

The five paragraphs revealed everything, a woman addressing snobbery – and killing pretension stone dead. It was about the link between social class and worship. It was about the truth of the period. And the dialogue cleverly established both the wisdom and the power of the Street’s Churchillian character.

Soap TV success has come about because it featured the dynamic of relationships, it was about people getting by with their everyday lives. But now the demands of so many episodes has resulted in the well of ideas running dry. It’s no surprise TV writer Maurice Gran (of Birds of a Feather fame) has complained about how supposedly realistic serials have “grown so remorselessly sensational, with plotlines glum to the point of parody”.

The glumness is often predicated upon the apparent need to incorporate public health statements. Yet, there’s a paradox running through today’s continuing dramas; they claim to mirror our world by reflecting reality, yet they steer well clear of the true realities.

When the Street’s new siren Shona was taken to hospital last week she didn’t face the fear in the faces of Polish nurses waiting to be Brexited out of the country. And where were the background shots of patients waiting for beds?

Why didn’t we see parts of the Waterloo Road building falling down, and parents complaining about the inequities of the PFI arrangement? And does River City ever hint at the fragmentation of Scottish society reflected in a Tall Ship lager discussion between Shellsuit and Angus? Not a chance. It will storyline the sadness of Alzheimer’s, but never mention the Dementia Tax.

Yes, soap producers will stress it’s important to be apolitical, but you can’t have your cake and eat it. You can’t become a casual conduit of public information without regard to the way governments are dealing (or not dealing) with the same issues.

American TV is running away with success because it’s using its own imagination. It’s selling clever shades of grey in the likes of Breaking Bad’s Walter White. But British TV has stopped asking difficult questions. It’s taken the easy route to filling air time.

Today’s soap producers need to stop being so prescriptive. Forget reality. Stick to a heightened version of reality, make the characters more Ena. Let governments warn of the dangers of prescription drugs or obesity.

MGM boss Louis B Mayer once berated his scriptwriters for preaching to audiences. “If I want to send a message I’ll use Western Union,” he yelled. And he was right to. But if anyone has been affected by the contents of this column . . . ah, diddums.