Someone once said that Christmas was the season to be jolly. Well, the writers of Eastenders, the gloomiest, doomiest soap opera in the world, did not take note. This Christmas we had the depiction of light-hearted subjects such as terminal disease followed by the death of one of its best loved characters, Pat Evans, marital strife between loudmouth Bianca Jackson, fresh out of prison, and her hapless partner Ricky, who has just had a bit of how’s your father with another character and accusations from Denise (whose Bed and Breakfast has just been destroyed by fire by nutjob doctor Yusef) against Phil , the local heavyweight who she believes is responsible for the death of her husband Kevin.
Cosy Christmases past
Cosy it isn’t, but 10 million people tuned in on Christmas Day beating ratings juggernauts Downton Abbey and ITV soap rival Coronation Street. Why? Everyone knows that Eastenders at Christmas is a thoroughly miserable affair. Traditionally the characters set themselves up for big family dinners when they should really know better. Without fail the yuletide season is ruined by a death. For example, Archie Mitchell, a character who was a paedophile and an all-round nasty piece of work, was infamously killed by a snow globe of all things in 2009. Jamie Mitchell, a likeable teenager, died on Christmas Day in 2002, after he was run over by the father of his girlfriend’s Sonia baby. Sonia was also a part time lesbian. On Christmas day 2006 moaning matriarch and dreary battle-axe, Pauline Fowler, collapsed and died in Albert Square in a flurry of snow and suspicions of murder. In Christmas 1998 Tiffany Mitchell discovered that her husband was having an affair with her mother and subsequently was run over and killed by Pat Evans on New Year’s Day. Pat subsequently died at Christmas 2011 just days after discovering she had incurable cancer.
On Christmas Day 2007, Eastenders gained one of its highest ratings for years and the highest ratings for any TV programme in 2007, when 13.9 million viewers saw Bradley Branning discover that his wife Stacey had been cheating with his father.
In Christmas 2001 there were complaints against a scene in which Little Mo's face was pushed in gravy by her violent and abusive husband Trevor.
Swapping babies was a disturbing storyline in 2010 which led to many complaints as one of the newborns swapped had just died from cot death! It beggars belief that so many British TV viewers would want to watch such misery. Why? The plots are stuff of your worst nightmare, the characters are often unlikeable and palpably stuck in their misery, and the dialogue is borderline abusive.
The secret of the show’s success
But the show is long running and a continuous ratings winner since it inception in 1985. This means that many people like it (although there are many that don’t.)
According to Julia Smith, the former producer of Eastenders, she states that what marks its popularity is the fact that "reality is not constructed but is reflected”. You could argue that the amount of disasters and tragedies that beset Albert Square is not really typical of your average British street but its defenders would say that it is a drama which uses such dramatic devices to display relevant social issues. Issues such as homosexuality, rape, unemployment, racial prejudice, mental health, domestic violence, single parenthood and of course death, have been dealt with in Eastenders in a realistic way. It is a very much a drama that is driven by social issues that are depicted by their effect on very flawed and basic characters, who are usually stripped bare of any furnishings and react often in a very human way. Albert Square people never seem to have money and are usually tormented by someone or something. The soap often appears as a struggle for basic human survival. Perhaps its enduring popularity is a reflection of our modern British society although gritty peak time soaps began in 1960 with northern working class soap drama Coronation Street. Unlike aspirational American counterparts or South American romantic telenovellas, the British soap likes to offer a good dose of grit and misery. Mal Young, the former Controller of Continuing Drama at the BBC, says that Eastenders is a success because it followed in an established British tradition. "It starts with the kitchen sink dramas, the Osborne plays that led to Coronation Street, Brookside and finally Eastenders. We are fascinated by the underbelly of society."
It is perhaps the only TV soap that regularly attracts young viewers from ethnic backgrounds as well as the staple audience of the over 50s viewers. BBC figures claim that 43% of black people and other ethnic minority groups watch Eastenders regularly – helped by the introduction of the Masood family in 2007. So it does cross the age and race demographic. But the unrelenting misery at Christmas? Who knows, but it could be that among the forced bonhomie of the media at Christmas, the British psyche needs a strong antidote and it doesn’t get much stronger than Eastenders.
Rachael Ann Loxston - Freelance writer/journalist of travel features, film reviews, music articles, social commentary and historical articles. Based in the ...
