Issue of the day: Eastenders at 35
IT began with a bang in a scene that saw neighbours forcing their way into a flat to find a dead body. Now, a week after its rival Coronation Street celebrated its 10,000th episode, Eastenders is celebrating its own milestone.
It’s 35?
The first episode of the BBC1 soap opera aired on February 19, 1985, with the characters Arthur Fowler, Ali Osman and Den Watts forcing their way into Reg Cox’s flat in Albert Square. Several weeks later, Nick Cotton was revealed as the murderer. More than 6,000 episodes have now aired.
It began as a rival to Coronation Street?
BBC producers were keen to introduce a bi-weekly series that would draw the same kind of mass audience figures attracted by
ITV’S drama on the cobbles. It had a number of early potential names, including East 8 and Round the Square, but eventually became Eastenders, with the action set around the fictional Victorian square, Albert Square, in Walford.
One big name helped draw audiences?
The casting of Wendy Richard drew headlines as she was well known for appearing in Are You Being Served? as glamorous Miss Brahms and so, the first episode garnered 17 million viewers. Down the line, another wellknown face, Barbara Windsor, joined the cast as Peggy Mitchell in 1994.
Den and Angie?
The original landlord and landlady of The Queen Vic kept viewers gripped in its early days with the ups and downs of their marriage. The 1996 Christmas
Day episode where Den, played by Leslie Grantham, handed Angie – portrayed by Anita Dobson – divorce papers, drew a record-breaking 30.1 million viewers and is regarded as a classic scene in UK TV history.
Some other famous names have appeared?
Boris Johnson visited The Queen
Vic pub in a 2009 episode when he was the then Mayor of London. Emma Bunton – AKA Baby Spice -– played a schoolgirl mugger in a 1992 episode before her pop star days.
Robbie Williams?
He was credited as the “man using the Queen Vic telephone” in a 1995 episode after he left Take That, while Downton Abbey’s Hugh Bonneville played a headmaster in one 1995 episode.
Originals?
Adam Woodyatt, who playes Ian Beale; Gillian Taylforth, who plays his mother, Kathy, and Letitia Dean, who plays Sharon Watts, are the only original cast members who remain in the show and Woodyatt is the only one to have appeared continuously.
35th celebrations?
To mark the 25th anniversary, a rare “Eastenders Live” was broadcast. Ten years on, a week of “explosive” episodes are ongoing, with producers telling viewers to “batten down the hatches, we’re in for a bumpy ride”, as one resident looks set to lose their life during a boat party on the Thames, hosted by current landlord and landlady of The Queen Vic, Mick and Linda Carter, played by Danny Dyer and Kellie Bright.