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Eastenders

Eastenders History
Julia Smith and Tony Holland, the creators of EastEnders.The idea for a new soap opera on BBC1 was conceived in 1983, by BBC executives. They gave the job of creating this new soap to script writer Tony Holland and director Julia Smith, famous for their work together on Z Cars. They created twenty-four original characters for the show, based upon Holland's own family, and people they remembered from their own experiences in the East End of London.
They cast actors for their characters, and began to film the show at the BBC Elstree Centre in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire. Simon May and Alan Jeapes created the title sequence and theme tune, and the show with a working title of East 8 was renamed Eastenders, when Smith and Holland realised they had been phoning casting agencies for months asking whether they had "any real East Enders" on their books. Julia Smith thought "Eastenders" "looked ugly written down", and capitalised the second 'e', and thus the name EastEnders was born.

The show was first broadcast on 19 February 1985, and became wildly popular, displacing Coronation Street from the top of the ratings for the rest of the 1980s, much of the 1990s, and to some extent in the 2000s. One of the most successful shows of the last 20 years, Eastenders remains the flagship production of the BBC on television.

Setting and characters
Eastenders is set in a fictitious borough of London called Walford. The central focus of the show is that of the equally fictitious Victorian square named Albert Square. It was built around the early 20th century, named after Prince Albert (1819–1861), the husband of Queen Victoria (1819–1901, reigned 1837–1901). Thus, central to Albert Square is The Queen Victoria Public House, typical of a London pub.

Fans have tried to establish the actual location of Walford within London. Walford East is a fictional tube station 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 would replace Bromley-by-Bow.

Walford has the postal district of E20, and fans have also tried to determine the location using this information. However, London East postal districts stop at E18, so the show's creators went for E20 instead of E19 as it was thought to sound better. The strongest claim to being the 'real' Albert Square is held by Ridley Road Market in Dalston, a short road that features a daily market and street vendors.

In reality, at least two Albert Squares do exist in the East End of London, one in Stratford and the other in Ratcliff, E1. However, the show's producers actually based the Square's design on the real life Fassett Square in Dalston. The name Walford is both a street in Dalston where Tony Holland lived and a portmanteau of Walthamstow and Stratford.

Characters
EastEnders was built around the ideas of strong families, with each character having a place in the community. This theme encompasses the whole Square, it making the entire community a family of sorts, prey to upsets and conflict, yet all pulling together in times of trouble. Co-creator Tony Holland was himself from a large East End family, and such families have typified EastEnders. The first 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 and 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. With such strong cultural archytypes forming the centre of the cast, it was no wonder that the show would later take such a strong hold of the county’s viewing habbits.

The Watts and Mitchell families have been central to many notable EastEnders storylines. The 1980s had been dominated by the Watts, while the 1990s focused heavily on the Mitchells. Peggy Mitchell, in particular, is notorious for her ceaseless repetition of such statements as "You're a Mitchell!" and "It's all about family!". The noughties 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 the idea of strong families is to the programme.

Some families feature a stereotypical East End matriarch. Indeed the matriarchal role is one that has been seen in various reincarnations since the programme's inception, often depicted as the epicentre of the family unit. The original matriarch was Lou Beale, though later examples include Pauline Fowler, Mo Butcher, Mo Harris, Pat Evans and Peggy Mitchell. Each character was seen as being loud and interfering but most importantly, responsible for the well-being of the family and usually stressing the importance of family values and reflection on the past.

In general, female characters have been central to the programme’s success. Strong, brassy, long-suffering women (some might say battle axes) who exhibit prima-donna like behaviour and stoicly battle through an array of tragedy and misfortune have become the eastenders matriarchal vereotype. Such characters include Angie Watts, Kathy Mitchell, Sharon Rickman and Pat Evans. There are female characters who handle tragedy less well, depicted as eternal victims and endless victims, who include Sue Osman, Mo Mitchell, Laura Beale and Lisa Fowler. The 'tart with a heart' is another recurring character, often popular with viewers. Often their promiscuity masks a hidden vulnerability and a desire to be loved. Such characters have included Pat, Tiffany Mitchell and Kat Moon. It can be argued that no program and certainly no soap opera has ever managed to tap into these archytypes so successfully before or since.

A balance of gender in the show is maintained via the inclusion of various 'macho' male personalities such as Phil and Grant Mitchell, who, despite their obvious influence, often cower in the face of the strong female characters described above. 'Bad boys' such as Den Watts and Dennis Rickman and 'hearthrobs' such as Simon Wicks and Jamie Mitchell featured strongly throughout the history of the show. Another recurring male character type is the smartly dressed businessman, often involved in gang culture and crime and seen as a local authority figure. Some examples include Steve Owen, Jack Dalton, Andy Hunter and Johnny Allen. Following criticism aimed at the show's over-emphasis on 'gangsters' in 2005, such characters have been significantly reduced. Another recurring male character seen in EastEnders is the 'loser' or 'soft touch', males often comically under the thumb of their female counterparts, which have included Arthur Fowler, Ricky Butcher and Lofty Holloway.

Dot Cotton, Ethel Skinner and Lou Beale were Walford's original pensioners and did a great job in representing the older generation. Over the years EastEnders has typically featured a number of elderly residents, who are used to show vulnerability, nostalgia, stalwart-like attributes and are sometimes used for comedic purposes. They also serve to link the cultural past to the contemporaneous present. The original elderly residents included Lou Beale, Ethel Skinner and Dot Cotton. Over the years they have been joined by the likes of Jules Tavernier, Nellie Ellis and Jim Branning. The focus on elderly characters has decreased since the show's inception and the programme has more recently included a higher number of teenagers and successful young adults in a bid to capture the younger demographic. This has spurred criticism, most notably from the actress Anna Wing, who played Lou Beale in the show. She commented that "I don't want to be disloyal, but I think you need a few mature people in a soap because they give it backbone and body... if all the main people are young it gets a bit thin and inexperienced. It gets too lightweight." Her views were perhaps not heeded and today there are less aged characters than in the past.

EastEnders has been known to feature the 'comedy double-act', which originally featured the characters of Dot and Ethel, whose friendship was one of the serial's most enduring relationships. Other examples include Paul Priestly and Trevor Short, Huw Edwards and Lenny Wallace, and Garry Hobbs and Minty Peterson and many others less worthy of note.

The majority of EastEnders' characters are working-class. Middle-class characters do occasionally become regulars, but have been less successful and rarely become long-term characters. In the main, middle-class characters exist as villains, such as James Wilmott-Brown and Stella Crawford, or are used to promote positive liberal influences, such as Colin Russell or Rachel Kominski. For some reason, characters that represent the working classes are the only ones to enjoy longevity in terms of popular recognition and the reason for this, whilst interesting, it somewhat unimportant.

EastEnders has almost always featured a culturally and well as chronologicallys diverse cast which has included black, Asian, Turkish and Polish characters. "The expansion of minority representation signals a move away from the traditional soap opera format, providing more opportunities for audience identification with the characters and hence a wider appeal". Despite this, the programme has been criticised by the Commission for Racial Equality, who argued in 2002 that EastEnders was not giving a realistic representation of the East End's "ethnic make-up". They suggested that the average proportion of visible minority faces on EastEnders was substantially lower than the actual ethnic minority population in East London boroughs, and it therefore reflected the East End in the 1960s, not the East End of the 2000s. It was also suggested that an element of "tokenism" and stereotyping surrounded many of these minority characters. EastEnders had varying success with ethnic minority characters. Possibly the least successful were the Indian Ferreira family, who were not well received by critics or viewers and were dismissed as unrealistic by the Asian community in the UK.

Some of the other recurring characters that have appeared throughout the serial are 'lost girls' such as Mary Smith and Donna Ludlow, delinquents such as Mandy Salter, Stacey Slater and Jay Brown, villains such as Nick Cotton and Trevor Morgan, bitches such as Cindy Beale and Janine Evans and cockney 'wide boys' or 'wheeler dealers' such as Frank Butcher and Alfie Moon.

EastEnders has a high cast turnover and characters are regularly changed in order to facilitate storylines or refresh the format. Following the departure of many established characters between 2004-2006, several families and long-term characters were introduced in 2006, which included the Fox and Wicks families and an extension of the already established Branning family. It is fair to say that a break in viewing during the time leading up to 2006 would leave the contemporary viewer without any sense of familiarity with the cast.

Eastenders also become known for the return of characters after they have left the show. Sharon Rickman has so far completed six separate stints on the programme (a record), as did Frank Butcher, and writers stunned viewers by bringing back Den Watts, fourteen years after he had seemingly died. Since then Watt’s off screen exploits became as notorious as those on screen.

Some characters, including Tracy the barmaid, have made occasional appearances over the years, without being involved in many major storylines. The character of Nick Cotton has gained a reputation for making constant exits and returns since the programme's first episode, having left the Square fifteen times since 1985, his most recent exit being in 2001. Generally speaking, surrounding the core cast are a succession of parts that are characteristically similar and functional in terms of the interconnection of storylines.

Ian Beel is the only character to remain in the show since the start of the show, after Pauline Fowler died in 2006. He is also the only character from the first episode who currently appears in the show. Dot Branning joined later in 1985, while Pat Evans first appeared in 1986. Dot had a short break in the mid 1990s, but Pat has been a regular character since her arrival and so far has not taken any time off.

Social realism
EastEnders covers a multitude of different issues within its storylines. 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 that whilst Brookside confronted issues, it was more sensationalist and EastEnders tried to maintain realism. There are exceptions to this but since the soap’s start, its rivals have overtaken it in terms of cutting edge drama.

The producers maintained that it was to be about 'everyday life' in the inner city 'today' and regarded it as a 'slice of life'. Creator/producer Julia Smith said 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". Most would agree that in many cases, theses aims were met, though not perhaps to the extend that the producers thought possible.

The rape of Kathy Beale was one of the more controversial storylines tackled in 1988.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, although 20 years on, many of the issues facing by working-class Britain were much more harrowing than those endured by the earlier generation. The nation has been truly shocked however by some of the stories in the show, including ‘Little’ Mo’s rape and physical abuse at the hands of her huspand.

Such storylines include Sue and Ali Osman's baby's cot death, Nick Cotton's homophobia and heroin addiction, other drug addiction, drug dealing (again involving Nick cotton) and murders of Reg Cox and Eddie Royle, the rape of Kathy Beale in 1988 and Michelle Fowler's teenage pregnancy. The show also dealt with prostitution, mixed-race relationships, shoplifting, sexism, divorce, domestic violence 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, Peggy Mitchell's breast cancer and mastectomy, and Phil Mitchell's alcoholism and violence towards wife Kathy. This reflection of such an important social issue was covered in a very factual way and some credit the show with shifting HIV attitudes in society.

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 her 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 manic depressive disorder, and Stacey was her carer (this storyline won a Mental Health Media Award in September 2006). Mental health issues were also confronted in 1996 when Joe Wicks developed schizophrenia. The issue of illiteracy was highlighted by the characters of Keith and Darren Miller and stupidity with the Mitchell brothers, Phil and Grant. EastEnders has also covered the issue of Down's syndrome, as Billy and Honey's baby, Janet, has been born with the condition. EastEnders recently covered child abuse with its storyline involving Phil Mitchell's 11-year-old son Ben and solicitor girlfriend Stella Crawford. Later in 2007, the programme featured storylines dealing with cocaine abuse and prostitution when Tanya Branning's sister arrived in Albert Square.

EastEnders is the most popular BBC television soap opera which was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC1 on 19 February 1985 and continues to date. EastEnders' storylines examine the lives of the people who live and work in Albert Square, a ficticious Victorian square of terraced houses in the east end of London, consisting of a pub, a street market and various small businesses.

It was originally screened as two half-hour episodes a week. Today there are four episodes which are broadcast each week on BBC 1 and an omnibus edition screens on Sunday afternoons. It is one of the UK's highest-rated programmes, often appearing near or at the top of the week's BARB ratings and ahead of its intra-genre rivals. Within a year of its launch, it reached the number one spot in the ratings, and has almost consistently remained amongst the top-rated programmes in the UK ever since then. The average audience share for an episode is currently between 40 and 45%.

Created by producer Tony Holland, EastEnders has retained significant in terms of the BBC's success and market share and also the history of British television drama, tackling many issues that other soaps simply were not willing to tackle and were the first to fully explore issues such as rape and domestic violence in a realistic way.

EastEnders has won five BAFTA Awards, and consistently won the Inside Soap Award for 'Best Soap' for ten years running, which is a mighty achievement for any program, as well as eight National Television Awards for 'Most Popular Serial Drama' and five awards for 'Best Soap' at the British Soap Awards. It has also been inducted into the Rose d'Or Hall of Fame.

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