Soaps Operas and Language and accent

The language used in soaps often reflects the character's behaviors and attitudes, accent plays a big part in this for example  the 'Eastenders' cast all have an 'east-end' or a stereotypical 'cockney' accent. Similar in 'Coronation Street' where the cast shares a Mancunian accent. It is rare to find a new recurring character in a soap who doesn't have an accent reflecting the area. Actors usually have to put an accent for this. This can be seen with Coronation street's new barmaid actress Michelle Collins who had to put on a Mancunian accent which had a range of bad complaints a quote from the daily mirror: "Michelle is blasted for bad accent" who said she was told to put it on, it wasn't an option. A lot of characters do this but it often turns out more successful seen with Ricky Norwood's  East-end accent with his character 'Arthur (Fat-boy) Chubb' .