Eastenders: The First Ten Years - A Celebration by Colin Brake
EastEnders, the hugely popular soap that regularly draws in 17,000,000 viewers and now runs thrice-weekly, is a community drama where people argue, gossip, laugh, fight and feud, have romances, secrets, parties and weddings and babies, but never lose sight of the fact that they are a community and that they'll always stick by one another. The stories are numerous and include tales of murder, runaway lovers, teenage pregnancies, gambling debts and kidnapped children, as well as special Christmas, and other seasonal stories. EastEnders: The First Ten Years is the official celebrationary book of the series with photos and interviews with the actors, and speculations on future tensions and dramas. It contains a collection of background information, character and plot development and trivia, packed into a fully illustrated excursion of Albert Square. Do you know: Who was Reg Cox and who killed him? Who fathered Cindy's boy, Stephen? Why did Arthur Fowler go to prison in 1987? What was the real reason Den Watts went to prison? Discover the answers to these and other questions in this behind-the-scenes re-telling of the programme's history and also how Julia Smith and Tony Holland created the programme. The book offers a year-by-year guide of the main story events, with a closer look at the special episodes, and includes a detailed feature which traces the making of one week's episodes, from the first story conference and script-commissioning meeting, right up to transmission. To round off the book, a fun piece has been included - a short story set in the year 2015 (the 25th anniversary) with computerized, grown-up versions of Vicki Fowler, Martin Fowler and Stephen Beale. A detailed appendix lists episodes, transmission dates, writers and directors.