EastEnders
EastEnders is a British television series on the BBC , the first episode of which aired on February 19, 1985. It is the people in the fictional life of Borough Walford in the East End in London . The action essentially takes place in Albert Square, a Victorian square with row houses, and in the neighboring streets Bridge Street, Turpin Road and George Street. The series originally aired two half-hour episodes per week. It has been on BBC One four days a week since 2001 .
EastEnders won five BAFTA awards , the Inside Soap Award for "Best Soap" for ten years of airing, as well as eleven National Television Awards for "Most Popular Serial Drama" and eight awards for "Best Soap" at the British Soap Awards .
Emergence
The aim of the BBC was to establish a series for its first program as competition to Coronation Street , with which Independent Television was very successful. The new series should run twice a week.
Series director David Reid, along with Julia Smith and Tony Holland, an established producer and screenwriter team , went to London to find inspiration for the planned series. In the East End they found a deeply ingrained cohesion throughout the neighborhood, a sense of community and a strong distrust of strangers and figures of authority.
The date for the completion of the project was set for January 1985, for which BBC1 planned a comprehensive redesign of the broadcasting times. The film was shot at Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire outside London. The press was invited to tour the sets and meet the actors. The first broadcast, which finally took place in February 1985, reached 17 million viewers. The reviews were largely positive and the audience ratings were able to remain at the same level in the period that followed.
popularity
The show began broadcasting one evening after extensive changes to the BBC's identity structure, serving as a showcase for the novelty of the programming. As competition broadcast to Coronation Street on ITV designed, it succeeded soon to ask this for the rest of the 1980s and 1990s in the shade. With 30.15 million viewers who tuned in on Christmas Eve 1986, the series achieved the highest audience rating for a show of its kind in British television history.
As one of the most popular programs on British television, audience ratings averaged 14 to 20 million in the 1980s and 1990s. In order to keep this at a consistently high level, the two competitors EastEnders and Coronation Street avoided offering their programs at the same time. However, this principle was broken for the first time in 2001. In direct competition, EastEnders won.
The number of viewers has been falling steadily since the turn of the millennium, in 2017 between 4 and 8 million viewers saw the individual episodes.
Location
The story of the series EastEnders takes place on and around the fictional Albert Square , set in an equally fictional area called Walford in London's East End. The outlines of the scenery for the square are modeled on the actually existing Fassett Square , the name taken from the historical figure of Prince Albert , who had a decisive and lasting influence on the development of this once backward area. The pub with the rotating scenes is also named after Queen Victoria in reference to this era . A visit to this location is usually used to observe the mostly dramatic events on the square from a hidden post.
There is a small garden in the middle of the square. Since the programs are often filmed up to six weeks in advance, it is necessary to add artificial leaves to the foliage of the trees. In the middle of the garden is a bench named after a certain Arthur, but better known as the "Bank of Tears" due to the dramatic scenes that take place in this place.
Several streets start from the square: Bridge Street , Victoria Road , Victoria Square , George Street , Turpin Way and Turpin Road . Bridge Street serves as the main street and location for the market, which is usually also where Fowler 's fruit and vegetable stand can be found. For a short time, converting the market area into a shopping center was under discussion, but these plans were soon discarded. In 2004 the local residents celebrated the centenary of the market. The majority of the district's shops are located along the street, including a tiny supermarket ( Minute Mart ), currently owned by the characters Patrick and Yolande Trueman, a small cleaning company owned by Mr Papadopoulos, whose appearances are rare. Instead, Pauline Fowler and Dot Branning worked there for years.
Also down the street is the Bridge Street Cafe , currently owned by Ian Beale. The name of the street is derived from the railway bridge that leads past it and the background noise of which is often exaggerated. Victoria Square is a kind of accommodation for people who have just lost their permanent residence.
In the George Street of comfort is of dwellings generally slightly higher than those at Albert Square, a little further down the road we come to the Indian restaurant Argee Bhajee . The auto repair shop in Turpin Way is also owned by Ian Beale and better known as the Arkaden . It was previously owned by the Mitchell brothers who took over the business as soon as they arrived in the area. In the immediate vicinity you will find a neighborhood center and a playground.
On Turpin Road is the post office, betting shop and Beale's Place chip shop , also owned by Ian Beale. A piece of the road there are up a monument commemorating the inhabitants Walfords that the First and Second World War have fallen. In reality, however, the memorial bears the names of people who are connected to the program and former stars.
Also not to be missed is a nightclub that was originally called The Market Cellar until it was bought by George Palmer and renamed the Cobra Club . When Palmer moved to another area, he sold the club to Steve Owen, who named it The E20 . Later there was another change of ownership when ownership passed to Sharon Watts and the shed was renamed Angie's Den . When Johnny Allen finally bought the adjoining snooker club, the club's area was expanded to include its premises. He is currently called Scarlet .
Walford forms a fictional London postal district (E20) and has a fictional train station, Walford East , which falls on the actual map of the tube network at the point where the station Bromley-by-Bow is located.
In the meantime, the location for the shooting has moved to Borehamwood in north-west London.
Locations
Once a year, the EastEnders team goes to a location abroad, so that at the same time, with the remaining part in Elstree, a second part of the series can be shot, thus guaranteeing a break from shooting at Christmas time.
- 1985: Pauline and Arthur travel to Southend in search of Mark
- 1986: Den and Angie go on a second honeymoon in Venice
- 1989: Dot Cotton, Ethel Skinner, Mo Butcher and Marge Green film an episode together in Clacton
- 1993: Pat and Frank, Sharon and Grant, Phil and Kathy travel to France
- 1995: Steve Elliott, Phil and Grant, David Wicks, Bianca and Ricky end up in Spain
- 1996: Bianca Jackson, Tiffany Raymond, Sarah Hills, Tony Hills, Dan Zapierri and Melanie Fishman land in Blackpool for a change
- 1997: Grant, Phil, Ian, Ros Thorne in Italy
- 1997: Pauline, Ian, Lucy, Ruth, Mark and Martin on a trip to Ireland, where they meet Pauline's long-lost sister and her family
- 1998: Grant, Phil, Kathy, Tiffany, Bianca, Ricky, Diane swarm to Paris together
- 1998: Tony, Simon, Matthew Rose, Theresa Di Marco take a trip to the Norfolk Broads
- 1998: For Pat, Roy, Barry, Lenny and Huw, the soccer world championship 1998 in France is announced
- 1999: Melanie Healy, Steve Owen, Sam Mitchell, Ricky Butcher, Mark Fowler, Mick Mc Farlene, Janine Butcher and Dr Fonseca spend Halloween days together in Brighton
- 2000: Terry, Irene, Pat, Frank, Peggy and Roy can be found this time in the Algarve
- 2001: Kat Slater, Zoe Slater, Lynne Slater, Garry Hobbs, Jamie Mitchell, Sonia Jackson and Robbie Jackson experience eventful days in Brighton
- 2002: Peggy, Frank and Sam make an appearance in Spain
- 2003: Phil and Lisa are in Portugal
- 2003/2004: Barry, Janine, Paul, Zoe, Kelly, Kareena, Tariq, Mickey, Ronny, Martin, Spencer and Sonia ended up in Scotland for Barry and Janine's wedding
Support of aid projects
The EastEnders team has often been involved in projects to support the BBC's Children in Need and Comic Relief foundations , such as: B. 1993 with the two-part, 15-minute Doctor Who crossover Dimensions in Time . Wendy Richard as Pauline Fowler, Gillian Taylforth as Kathy Beale, Letitia Dean as Sharon Watts and Steve McFadden as Phil Mitchell and Ross Kemp as Grant Mitchell were involved in the shooting.
As part of a similar action, there was a production in 2002 with Michael Jackson's title Thriller as background music.
Broadcast dates
EastEnders always airs in prime time. After Coronation Street expanded its airtime to three times a week, EastEnders' broadcast times increased to four days a week in 2001.
In 1998, the broadcasting of a program on the background of the production began in parallel.
From 2003 it was also possible to watch programs in advance on the cable channel BBC3 before they are broadcast on BBC1. The start of broadcasting on this channel coincided with its reorientation and helped it break through the 1 million viewer barrier for the first time. In 2005, a program called EastEnders Xtra was also produced, which also shows background reports on the shooting and interviews with the actors.
EastEnders is also a success in other English speaking countries like New Zealand and Canada. By 2003, BBC America also broadcast in America. When the series was canceled, the American fan base organized protests. In the broadcaster's branches in Europe and Africa, too, the program is still regularly on the screen. In June 2004, a satellite network in the United States took over the broadcast of the program from the episode on which the broadcast on BBC America had ended. On various other channels, episodes from previous years are broadcast again and again.
In Australia, the series was broadcast on ABC TV from 1987 to 1991. In Ireland the program will be aired on the local main station RTE1 at the same time as BBC1, although the BBC is also available in many parts of the country.
literature
- Gerlinde Frey-Vor: Long-term series on German and British television. Lindenstrasse and EastEnders in an intercultural comparison . Spiess, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-89166-031-6 .
Web links
- Official website (English)
- EastEnders in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Full list of Bafta TV award winners , BBC News Online . May 10, 1999. Retrieved November 4, 2009.
- ↑ Rival soaps tie on awards night , BBC News. September 26, 2006. Retrieved November 4, 2009.
- ^ EastEnders Scoops Gongs , BBC Online .