EastEnders turns 25 with a live ‘murder’

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This article was published 20/02/2010 (6066 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

LONDON — Someone killed Archie Mitchell, bludgeoning the pub landlord with the bust of Queen Victoria that stood proudly atop his bar.

Millions of Britons want to know who did it; some are even placing bets. Mitchell was a character in the soap opera EastEnders, which marked its 25th birthday Friday with a live episode, when up to 15 million viewers will learn the identity of Archie’s killer.

British soaps have a special place in the nation’s heart, despite being unglamorous.

“American soaps are about watching beautiful people suffer,” said Tim Teeman, arts editor of The Times of London and a soap fan. “We like to watch ugly people suffer.”

EastEnders was launched by the BBC in 1985 as a cockney rival to the northern English soap Coronation Street. EastEnders is set in Albert Square, a TV version of a working-class London district. There’s a market, Victorian houses, a cafe, a laundromat and a pub, the Queen Victoria, that’s the centre of community life.

The Queen Vic is where Archie met his demise — the 76th EastEnders character to die.

Past residents of Albert Square have been shot, stabbed, strangled, impaled, burnt to death and run over. A study in the British Medical Journal once concluded that a soap character was a more dangerous role than bomb disposal expert, steeplejack or Formula One race car driver.

Unlike their American counterparts, British soaps are broadcast in the evening, and have a strikingly earthy tone. EastEnders is a distinctive mix of violence, implausible plots — long-lost children pop up regularly — and finely observed everyday detail.

Jamie Medhurst, a lecturer in film and television at Aberystwyth University, said British soaps emerged from a tradition of social realism, and still have one foot rooted in that world.

“They have to keep within the bounds of realism,” he said. “The audiences have to be able to see something of their own lives.”

British soaps have fans in high places — Prince Charles’ wife, Camilla, expressed a desire for a walk-on part in Coronation Street. But some politicians remain unconvinced of their worth.

Conservative lawmakers squared off this week on whether EastEnders is good for society. The party’s culture spokesman, Jeremy Hunt, wished the show happy 25th birthday and praised it for raising difficult social issues. But children’s spokesman Tim Loughton said it perpetuated damaging stereotypes.

“Social workers are always caricatured as sandal-wearing interferers; the police as pretty dim and flat-footed and teachers as snotty busybodies,” he wrote on a Conservative blog.

Supporters argue that EastEnders takes on serious social issues, from teen pregnancy to drug abuse, racism and homophobia, and has reflected — and at times pushed — changes in British society.

The show recently saw its first Muslim wedding, when Syed Masood married his fiancée Amira in a lavish ceremony — to the dismay of his secret boyfriend, Christian.

Some had predicted there would be a negative reaction to a gay Muslim character, but the storyline has been welcomed by viewers.

“In the beginning soaps were leading public opinion, and that’s why they were so shocking,” Teeman said. “Now public opinion is ahead of them, so you keep having to up the ante. You can no longer just have a gay couple. You have a gay couple who are separated by religion, basically.”

Who killed Archie? There’s no shortage of suspects, led by his daughters Ronnie and Roxy and his estranged wife Peggy.

The BBC said even the actor playing the killer will not know until half an hour before the live transmission at 8 p.m. Friday. (In Winnipeg, EastEnders airs on PBS at 11 p.m. Sundays; the broadcasts are some months behind the original British airings.) The cast has been rehearsing 10 possible endings as it prepares for a complex broadcast that involves 51 actors, 36 camera operators and 13 makeup artists.

Teeman says he hopes, for drama’s sake, the killer is a member of Archie’s close family.

“Soaps trade on classical drama and Shakespearean drama,” he said. “That may sound pretentious, but you strip down any soap story and you are watching Greek drama — children neglected by parents, misunderstandings.”

And, of course, murder.

— The Associated Press