Rewind to last July, when the Square celebrated the LGBTQ+ community

his week’s classic episode originally aired on 5 July 2019, and marks an important moment in Eastenders’ history. It was the first time Walford celebrated Pride, the colourful festival honouring the LGBTQ+ community.

The episode was part of boss Kate Oates’ commitment to make the soap more diverse, and came a few months after the show got its first gay bar, The Prince Albert.

‘We had Johnny [Carter] going off to his first Pride a couple of years earlier, but we couldn’t film there for real,’ recalls writer Pete Lawson. ‘Having our own bar gave us that opportunity, as well as having enough characters at different stages of their coming-out journeys to craft an episode.

‘It had to be like every other episode – driven by character and story – and not just be a “thing” that happened.’

Walford Pride took place in the 30thanniversary year of another historic episode. In 1989, popular character Colin and boyfriend Guido had what was the first mouth-on-mouth gay kiss on UK

T

★★★★

Clockwise, from top left: Craig, Keough, Driver

and Tatum