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 been the UK's highest-rating programme on numerous occasions. Despite lengthy criticism of the show from the critics, in October 2005 it won the prestgious National Television Award for most popular Serial Drama which EastEnders has won several consecutive times in the past ten years. There have been characters from all ethnicities, and have contributed to the realism created.

Setting and characters

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, they found exactly what they had been searching for. A real East End spirit — 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. The Queen Vic provides a central meeting point within the show's setting, thus most of the action happens here in view of the community. Enlarge The Queen Vic provides a central meeting point within the show's setting, thus most of the action happens here in view of the community.

It is thought that 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 late husband of Queen Victoria, who then went on to die 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, 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 real 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. It is rumoured that the fictional borough of Walford was named after the areas of London that the creators hailed from - Walthamstow and Stratford.

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 Fowler and Beale clan consisting of Pauline Fowler, her husband Arthur, and teenage children Mark and Michelle. Living nearby was Pauline's twin brother Pete, his wife Kathy and their son Ian. Pauline and Peter's mother was the domineering Lou who resided with Pauline and her family.

Tony Holland drew on the names of his own family for his 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 emphasis to the Watts and Mitchell families. Key people involved in the production of EastEnders have stressed how important this idea of strong families is to EastEnders.

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. Whilst the older characters, such as Dorothy and Jim Branning hold an essential part of the show, EastEnders is beginning a new era of younger characters, notably Stacey Slater, Deano Wicks, Bradley Branning and a new young family set to arrive on the show in 2006.

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, Andy Hunter and Johnny Allen.

Social realism

In the eighties, 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’s baby's cot death, Nick Cotton's homophobia, the rape of Kathy Beale in 1988, Michelle Fowler's teenage pregnancy, drug dealing, prostitution, mixed-race relationships, shoplifting, sexism, racism, divorce and muggings.

As the show progressed into the nineties EastEnders still featured hard-hitting issues such as Mark Fowler discovering he was HIV positive in 1991 and the death of Gill, murder, adoption, alcoholism and domestic violence. 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 Slater by husband Trevor, Sonia giving birth at the age of fifteen and then putting the baby up for adoption, prostitution, agoraphobia and drugs.

Aside from this soap opera staples of youthful romance, jealousies, domestic rivalries, kitchen disasters, gossip, community fund-raising events and extra-marital affairs are regularly featured.

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