It's 'The Archers' for W11

Just opposite the newly hip Grand Union pub, in the shadow of Trellick Tower, is a pedestrian bit of parkland called Meanwhile Gardens.

Recently renovated, it boasts a play area and some chic, sculptural gateposts. Pleasantly styled though it is, you wouldn't necessarily expect it to have inspired the cult soap opera of the moment. But it has.

Meanwhile Gardens is West London's first internet soap opera. Serialised weekly on the web, it has run for over a year and, at last count, was attracting up to 5,000 hits a week. It's been described as 'a Famous Five for adults', 'Tales of the City set in Portobello' and 'W11's The Archers', and it's got a cult fashion following - Maia Norman (Mrs Damien Hirst), Bill Amberg and Fiona Carenza (co-owner of painfully cool clothing store Rellik) are all fans.

Screamingly camp and slightly surreal, it features exploding coffins, murderous Morris-dancing fundamentalists, society heiresses, scheming industrialists, and a gaggle of gay men locked in a desperate contest to win the coveted 'Tragedy Queen of the Year' title.

It's the invention of writer Charlie Caselton, who got the idea while walking his dog past the park along the Grand Union Canal. 'I noticed this strip of land bordering the canal beside Kensal Green cemetery. It was overgrown, but it looked like there was a secret path leading to the cemetery wall and a possible hide-out. That got my imagination all fired up and I began to think about who might be hiding out there,' he explains. He completed a first draft and had it rejected by several publishers, before contacting West London website Portowebbo and cutting a deal to get it serialised. It was later syndicated to the myvillage network of London websites, where followers can now get their weekly hit.

As well as high-profile fans, the soap has an international following. Caselton gets e-mails from Meanwhile Garden addicts in Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Sydney and San Francisco.

'I guess some people did get obsessed last year,' says Caselton. 'Several of them sent in storyline suggestions for what they wanted to happen. If the new chapters weren't up by Monday lunchtime, there'd be grumbling messages on Portowebbo's message board. I remember there was a message from one confused American wanting to know what "drunkenly snogging" involved. As you can imagine, this provoked a flurry of responses.'

Caselton is currently looking for a publisher for the book. He's already mapped out book two (provisionally entitled The Muse of Meanwhile). It seems unlikely that he's going to run out of inspiration. 'Actually,' he says, somewhat randomly, 'my dog is going out with Fiona [Carenza]'s dog, who also happened to model in a Burberry campaign. So now my dog's girlfriend is a Burberry model, which is too Ladbroke Grove for words.' You get the general idea.