EastEnders

EastEnders is a popular BBC television soap opera, first broadcast on 19 February 1985. It has been running ever since, generating strong viewing figures for much of that time, and has at times been the UK's highest-rated programme.

Despite the strong criticism of the show by critics and poor ratings on occasion, EastEnders won the prestigious National Television Award for 'Most Popular Serial Drama' in October 2005, was inducted into the Rose d'Or Hall of Fame in April 2006, and in May 2006 won the BAFTA for 'Best Continuing Drama'. It also won seven British Soap Awards in May 2006, including the award for 'Best British Soap'.

Setting and characters

Setting

EastEnders is set in the fictional London Borough of Walford. However, the central focus of the show is that of the equally fictional Victorian square named Albert Square.

The show's creators were both Londoners, but when they researched Victorian squares, they found massive changes in areas they thought they knew well. However, delving further into the East End of London, they found exactly what they had been searching for: a real East End spirit â€" an inward looking quality, a distrust of strangers and authority figures, a sense of territory and community that the creators summed up as 'Hurt one of us and you hurt us all'.These themes that were found for the setting can still be found in a present day episode of EastEnders.

In the show's continuity, Albert Square was built around the early 20th century, indeed heavy research was done by the show's creators to support this. Firstly, the square is named Albert Square after Prince Albert, the husband of Queen Victoria, who died in 1901. Thus, central to Albert Square is The Queen Victoria Public House.

But as the set was built in the early eighties, it had to be made to look as if it had been standing for years and years. This was done by a number of means, including chipping at the buildings with pickaxes.

The EastEnders lot was built and designed by Keith Harris, who was a senior designer within the production team. Then in 1986, he added an extension to the set, building the fourth side of Albert Square, and in 1987, Turpin Road was added, which included buildings such as The Dagmar. In 1993 George Street was added, and soon after Walford East tube station was built.

In the past, fans have tried to establish the actual location of Walford within London. Walford East is a fictional tube station for Walford, and with the aid of a map that was first seen on air in 1996, it has been established that Walford East is located between Bow Road and West Ham, which realistically would replace Bromley-by-Bow.

Walford has the postal district of E20, thus fans have also tried to pinpoint the location using this. However, realistically, London East postal districts stop at E18; the show's creators opted for E20 instead of E19 as it was thought to sound better.

The strongest claim to being the 'real' Albert Square is held by Broadway Market in Hackney, a short pedestrianised road that features a weekly market and established street vendors. The postcode for the area, E8, was one of the working titles for the series.

In reality, an Albert Square does exist in the East End, in Stratford. However, the show's producers actually based the square's design on the real life Fassett Square in the East End. The name Walford is a portmanteau of Walthamstow and Stratford – the areas of London that the creators were born.

Characters

EastEnders was built around the ideas of 'clans' of strong families and each character having a place in the community. Co-creator Tony Holland was himself from a large East End family, and such families have typified EastEnders. The first central family was the Beale and Fowler clan consisting of Pauline Fowler, her husband Arthur, and teenage children Mark and Michelle. Living nearby was Pauline's twin brother Pete Beale, his wife Kathy and their son Ian. Pauline and Pete's mother was the domineering Lou, who resided with Pauline and her family. Holland drew on the names of his own family for the characters.

The Watts and Mitchell families have been central to most of the notable EastEnders storylines and Peggy Mitchell, in particular, is notorious for her ceaseless repetition of such statements as "You're a Mitchell!" and "Get out of my pub!". The 2000s saw a new focus on the largely female Slater clan, before the return of an emphasis on the Watts and Mitchell families. Key people involved in the production of EastEnders have stressed how important this idea of strong families is to the programme.

Some families feature a stereotypical East End matriarch such as Lou Beale, Pauline Fowler, Mo Harris and Peggy Mitchell. These characters are seen as being loud and interfering but most importantly, responsible for the well-being of the family and usually stressing the importance of family, reflecting on the past.

EastEnders also features a number of elderly residents, who are used to show vulnerability and stalwart-like characters and sometimes for comedic purposes. The original elderly residents included Lou Beale, Ethel Skinner and Dorothy Cotton. Over the years they have been joined by the likes of Jules Tavernier, Mo Butcher, Nellie Ellis, Jim Branning, Patrick Trueman and Mo Harris.

EastEnders has been known to have a "comedy double-act" in the show, previously demonstrated with the characters of Huw Edwards and Lenny Wallace, and Natalie Price and Bianca Jackson (and later with Bianca and Tiffany Raymond), and currently seen with Garry Hobbs and Minty Peterson.

Another recurring character type is the smartly dressed businessman, often involved in crime, who is seen as a local authority figure. Examples include Den Watts, James Wilmott-Brown, Steve Owen, Jack Dalton, Andy Hunter and Johnny Allen.

After the loss of many much-loved characters in 2005 and early 2006, such as Sam Mitchell, Chrissie Watts, Zoe Slater, Nana, Kat and Alfie Moon, Johnny Allen, Dennis Rickman and Little Mo Mitchell, the first half of 2006 has seen many new arrivals including Deano Wicks, Carly and Kevin Wicks, Bradley, Max and Tanya Branning, Dr. Oliver Cousins, Denise, Chelsea Fox and Squiggle Fox, Owen Turner, Sarah-Jane Fletcher, Rob Minter, Caroline Bishop and a short return for Grant and Courtney Mitchell. The large influx of new characters is now nearing its end, with only Sean Slater still to join.

The show has also become known for the return of characters after they have left the show. Sharon Rickman has departed seven times, and returned six times, Frank Butcher has completed six separate stints on the programme, and writers stunned viewers by bringing back Den Watts, fourteen years after he had seemingly died!

Filming

EastEnders is filmed at the BBC Television Studios at Elstree in Hertfordshire. There are four episodes filmed per week, and are usually filmed about 6â€"7 weeks in advance of broadcast. During the winter period, filming often takes place up to 8 or 9 weeks in advance, due to less daylight for outdoor filming sessions. Online fans have the chance to watch filming on the EastEnders webcam, which is on the Official BBC EastEnders website,[1]. It shows updated stills of Albert Square, Turpin Road and George Street. The page also displays which episode is currently being filmed, the date it will be broadcast, and an extract of the script from that episode.

Social realism

In the 1980s, EastEnders featured gritty storylines involving drugs and crime, representing the issues faced by working-class Britain much as Coronation Street did in the 1960s.

However EastEnders has, for the most part, remained a populist series and has generally avoided the arguably tougher stories of Brookside. Brookside had also launched as a social realist drama, leading the way for more conservative soaps like EastEnders to follow. Arguably the difference between them was whilst Brookside confronted issues, it was more sensationalist and EastEnders tried to maintain realism.

The programme makers emphasised that it was to be about 'everyday life' in the inner city 'today' and regard it as a 'slice of life'. Creator/producer Julia Smith declared that "We don't make life, we reflect it". She also said, "We decided to go for a realistic, fairly outspoken type of drama which could encompass stories about homosexuality, rape, unemployment, racial prejudice, etc., in a believable context. Above all, we wanted realism".

Such storylines include Sue and Ali Osman's baby's cot death, Nick Cotton's homophobia, the rape of Kathy Beale in 1988 and Michelle Fowler's teenage pregnancy. The show also dealt with drug dealing, prostitution, mixed-race relationships, shoplifting, sexism, racism, divorce and muggings.

As the show progressed into the 1990s, EastEnders still featured hard-hitting issues such as Mark Fowler discovering he was HIV positive in 1991 and the death of his wife Gill from AIDS-related illness, murder, adoption, and Phil Mitchell's alcoholism and domestic violence towards wife Kathy.

In the early 2000s, EastEnders covered the issue of euthanasia with long-established characters Ethel Skinner and Dot Cotton, Kat Slater's abuse by her uncle Harry as a child, the domestic abuse of Little Mo Morgan by husband Trevor, Sonia Jackson giving birth at the age of fifteen and then putting the baby up for adoption, and Janine Butcher's prostitution, agoraphobia and drug addiction. The soap has also recently tackled the issue of mental health, and carers of people who have mental conditions. This has been illustrated with mother and daughter Jean and Stacey Slater; Jean suffers from bipolar disorder, and Stacey is her carer. EastEnders is soon to cover the issue of Down syndrome as in 2006, Billy and Honey's baby will be born with the condition.
* The War memorial on set features names of people involved in EastEnders along with past stars.
* Oxfam was the main outlet used for the actors costumes when the series was first made.
* A vocal version of the theme tune called "Anyone Can Fall in Love" reached number 4 in the charts in summer 1986 and was sung by Anita Dobson (Angie Watts).
* The Queen and Prince Philip visited the set in 2001 and were shown around by actresses Wendy Richard and Barbara Windsor.Queen to meet EastEnders BBC, URL last accessed 2006-07-15
* The roads around Albert Square are not built to scale; they look real but some can only take one car at a time.
* When Barbara Windsor joined the show in 1994, she was only contracted for ten episodes.
* Albert Square is built on the site last used for building works in the 1980s Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.
* In 1993, the show's theme tune was updated to a jazzy version, first heard on 11 May 1993. However, it proved very unpopular with the viewers and was replaced with a remix of the original theme tune only 11 months later, from 11 April 1994 (also the first Monday edition of the show). EastEnders trivia IMDb, URL last accessed 2006-07-16
* EastEnders was the inaugural winner of the 1999 BAFTA for best continuing drama.Full list of Bafta TV award winners BBC, URL last accessed 2006-07-15
* Since EastEnders began in 1985, at least one of its episodes have rated higher than any other British soap opera throughout each decade. This includes the 1980s, 1990s and so far the 2000s.
* On Friday 11 November 2005, EastEnders was the first British drama to feature a two minute silence.
* Originally there was a storyline written that the whole Ferreira clan killed their pushy father Dan, but after Dalip Tahil could not get a visa for working in the UK the storyline was scrapped and instead Ronny Ferreira got stabbed.21 Years of EastEnders: Secrets of Walford The Mirror, last accessed on 2006-07-15
* Den, Angie and Sharon Watts were originally to be called Jack, Pearl and Tracey.
* Big Brother 7's Nikki Grahame once had a background role in the show. Nikki's stint in Walford, BBC, URL last accessed on 2006-07-15
* A specially filmed clip of EastEnders features in the 2006 episode of Doctor Who entitled Army of Ghosts. In the scene, Peggy Mitchell confronts what she calls the ghost of Den Watts, ordering it to get out of her pub.

References

External links

Talk about EastEnders here
* BBC - EastEnders Official site
* BBC video clips
* The EastEnders fanlisting
* Walford Web EastEnders on the Net
* The Walford Gazette
* North Carolina EastEnders Fan Club
* Walford.net Archive of EastEnders Updates
* rec.arts.tv.uk.eastenders
* PopMatters EastEnders review
* Encyclopedia of Television
* Save EastEnders Originally set up when the show was taken off air in America
* BBC writers room Face2Face with EastEnders
* EastEnders soundboard
* Talk Walford Talk about the show with fans
* TVForum/EastEnders The place to talk

EastEnders: Encyclopedia BETA

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