History of Eastenders

Eastenders is the main soap I will be researching into now as from research I have realized this is one of the most popular British soaps.
EastEnders was launched at a critical moment in the BBC's history and was intended to demonstrate the BBC's ability to produce popular programming. It started airing on the night after a major identity change for the channel, with the show representing the "new face" of the BBC. Critics first derided the new offering, as it was clear that the BBC wished to bridge the gap between the network and its competitor, ITV. One news source went as far as to accuse the channel of only having the courage to air the soap after Patricia Phoenix (Elsie Tanner) left Coronation Street.

The BBC brass was vindicated, however, when EastEnders became wildly popular and displaced Coronation Street from the top of the ratings for the rest of the 1980s and much of the 1990s and 2000s.

Many celebrities have appeared in EastEnders. Robbie Williams has made a cameo appearance on the telephone in the Queen Vic and is a big fan of the show. Martha Ross, mother of television presenters Jonathan and Paul, was an extra in the programme, as a market stallholder, from its inception until November 2006, when she was fired for leaking a Christmas storyline, which Paul repeated on his LBC radio show. Before the Spice Girls, Emma Bunton was cast as a troubled youth in the soap. Also, Big Brother 7's Nikki Grahame once had a background role in the show. Blue Peter presenter Peter Purves also appeared in 1987 as Martin Hunter, a patronising television reporter. David Walliams played a friend of Alfie Moon in 2003. Mayor of London Boris Johnson appeared as himself in the episode broadcast on 1 October 2009. The previous Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, accused the BBC of political bias for allowing Johnson to appear in the programme.


EastEnders is a long-running British television soap opera, first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 19 February 1985. It currently ranks as one of the most watched shows in the UK. EastEnders storylines examine the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in the fictional London Borough of Walford in the East End of London. The series primarily centres around the residents of Albert Square, a Victorian square of terraced houses, and its neighbouring streets, namely Bridge Street, Turpin Road and George Street, and which encompasses a pub, street market, night club, community centre, café and various small businesses, in addition to a park and allotments.

The series was originally screened as two half-hour episodes per week. Since August 2001, four episodes are broadcast each week on BBC One, with each episode being repeated on BBC Three at 22:00 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. Within eight months of its launch, it reached the number one spot in the ratings, and has remained, almost consistently, among the top-rated TV programmes in Britain ever since. The average audience share for an episode is currently between 35 and 45 percent. Created by producer Julia Smith and script editor Tony Holland, EastEnders has remained a significant programme in terms of the BBC's success and audience share, and also in the history of British television drama, tackling many controversial and taboo issues previously unseen on mainstream television in the UK.

EastEnders has won six BAFTA Awards, as well as ten National Television Awards for "Most Popular Serial Drama" and eight awards for 'Best Soap' at the British Soap Awards. It has also been inducted into the Rose d'or Hall of Fame. It has also won eight TV Quick and TV Choice Awards for 'Best Soap', five TRIC Awards for 'Soap of The Year' and four Royal Television Society Awards for 'Best Continuing Drama'.

I looked at the setting involved in this soap.

Setting

The central focus of EastEnders is the fictional Victorian square Albert Square in the fictional London Borough of Walford. Albert Square 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.

Fans have tried to establish the actual location of Walford within London. Walford East is a fictional tube station for Walford, 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 realistically would replace Bromley-by-Bow on the District and Hammersmith & City lines.

Walford has the postal district of E20. The postcode district was selected as if it were part of the actual E postcode area which covers much of east London although the next unused postcode district in the area was, and still is, E19. The E stands for Eastern. In 1917 the current postal districts in London were assigned alphabetically according to the name of the main sorting office for each district. If Walford had been assigned in this scheme it would have been given E17, which is the current postcode district for Walthamstow. Fans have tried to pinpoint the location using this postcode, however, in reality London East postal districts stopped at E18 at that time; the show's creators opted for E20 instead of E19 as it was thought to sound better.In March 2011, Royal Mail allocated the E20 postal district to the 2012 Olympic Park.

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 based the square's design on the real life Fassett Square in Dalston. There is also a market close to Fassett Square at Ridley Road. The postcode for the area, E8, was one of the working titles for the series. The name Walford is both a street in Dalston where Tony Holland lived and a blend of Walthamstow and Stratford—the areas of London where the creators were born. Other parts of the Square and set interiors are actually based on various other locations. The bridge is based upon the one adjacent to BBC Television Centre, the Queen Vic on the old pub at the end of Scrubs Lane/Harrow Road NW10, and the interior to the Fowlers' is based on a house in Manor Road Colchester, close to where the supervising art director lived.[citation needed] The fictional local newspaper, the Walford Gazette, in which local news events such as the arrests or murders of characters appear, mirrors the area's own Hackney Gazette.

Reasearch found on various websites through the google search engine.

Here is one of the most popular episodes of Eastenders in this clip you can see the setting well.