Now, let me see if I can explain this.It's worth it, cos it's all fab.
Moving Wallpaper on ITV is a comedy, looking behind the scenes at the making of a soap opera. We get to see all the random moments which conspire to create plotlines, props and characters. There's a producer with a big ego (played by Ben Miller from Armstrong & Miller), a bunch of script-writers each with their own eccentricities, and of course the actors. For the purposes of this comedy, Jason Donovan, Martine McCutcheon and the woman who used to be the head in Grange Hill all play themselves, mostly in tiny walk-on parts, because the main point of the drama is "what it takes to make a soap".
Then, we get to see the fruits of their labours, in Echo Beach. It's the soap itself. And actually, you don't have to think too carefully about the fact that you're now two degrees separated from reality. Jason Donovan of course is no longer playing himself, he's Daniel Marrack, an outcast from a Cornish village who returns many years later with his children. And so on.
If you watch both programmes, the best bits are when you get absorbed in the soap (which you kind of can't help doing) and then suddenly realise that you're watching a random moment which is the consequence of something funny which happened in the fake documentary.
I'm not sure I've got the idea across particularly well. If not, just watch, and (as over-enthusiastic waiters say) enjoy.
