Eastenders- Characters

There are many different types of characters in Albert Square (Eastenders) such as the Matriarch, diva like behaviour, brassy women, tart with a heart, macho male, bad boy’s, heartthrobs, businessmen, the loser or soft touch, the guys who have lost girls, villains and the wheeler dealer’s. all of the these characters create the whole concept of Albert square in Eastenders to make it entertaining and a real life soap of the different types of characters which are also in reality.

Matriarchs are often the characters who like to keep the peace to protect there family most of the time, they are also in the middle of the family unit; Lou Beale (first matriarch), Pauline Fowler, Mo Butcher, Mo Harris, Pat Evans, Peggy Mitchell and Zainab Masood.

Lou Beale   

Peggy Mitchell   (2 examples of Matriarchs)

Most of the time female characters are what is important to the programme. Female characters that are brassy and has a diva like attitude and who battle through different tragedies and misfortune; Angie Watts, Kathy Mitchell, Sharon Rickman and Pat Evans. Females who can handle situations less well and suffers endlessly include Sue Osman, Little Mo Mitchell, Laura Beale and Lisa Fowler. The Tart with a heart is often recurring in Eastenders and you see them develop a lot and is the favourite with the audience; Pat, Tiffany Mitchell, Kat Moon and Stacey Slater.

Stacey Slater

Little Mo Mitchell

Kat Moon

The different categorised characters keep the soap balanced (Eastenders). One character will leave but there is always another placed to fill in that spot to keep it balanced and even if the writers have to create a new character or bring back one from the past, they will, to keep it all balanced.

The male characters are there to balance the gender in the soap. The follow to from the matriarchs there are the Macho men like Phil and Grant Mitchell. There are the bad boy characters; Den Watts and Dennis Rickman and there are the Heartthrob characters such as Simon Wicks and Jamie Mitchell.  There are many different types of male characters compared to the women because the women alone balance out the whole soap which the soap are in need of more male characters to make the soap equal there for they have added the smartly dressed business men who often are involved in illegal work; Steve Owen, Jack Dalton, Andy Hunter and Johnny Allen. The Loser and the Soft touch men and often controlled by their women; Arthur Fowler, Ricky Butcher and Lofty Holloway. The Wide boys include Frank Butcher, Alfie Moon and Kevin Wicks

Steve Owen

Arthur Fowler

Alfie Moon

Phil Mitchell

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The different categorised characters keep the soap balanced (Eastenders). One character will leave but there is always another placed to fill in that spot to keep it balanced and even if the writers have to create a new character or bring back one from the past, they will, to keep it all balanced.

EastEnders- Family and Community

Since 1985 family's and the community has changed till this day of 2011, the families and the community has expanded into a bigger cast. When EastEnders first began it only had two families but now it has 10 families in total and 11 other members of the cast not belonging to a cast.
Here is the Eastenders Families now:

Here is an image that i took off google of the Eastenders family tree of the casts that are connected to each other and that are and arent in the programme anymore:

Albert Square: Self contained community.

Albert square is built around strong families and relationship between friends, each character is built around the community to fit in to a spot to click to the other characters. Albert square makes the whole community some sort of family, situations fit in to the community and therefore upsets everyone within but then the community work all together and pull through the situations and forgive in there own way to still accept the ones with the fault into the community.

The East End community contain stereotypical characters of matriarch, the brassy diva like ladies, a macho man, and business men like, the heartthrobs and many other types of characters to balance the community instead of plain and simple people.

Eastenders- How it all began.

Eastenders first began as a vague idea in 1983. A handful of BBC executives  decided that BBC One needed a popular bi-weekly drama series that would attract a handful of audience. The BBC team turned to the producer/ scriptwriter team Julia Smith and Tony Holland.



Julia Smith and Tony Holland.



Julia Smith and Tony Holland were both londoners. Tony Holland was bought and bought up in the big East End. The two researched into Victoria Square to find dramatic changes happening in the area that they both thought that they knew. They both discovered that a real East End Spirit is an inward looking quality, distrust of strangers and authority figures, competition within territory and community this is what Holland and Smith summed up as ‘Hurt one of us and you hurt all of us’.



19 February 1985, the press were all invited to the set of EastEnders for the first launch ever which contained 24 characters who belonged to two family trees of the Fowlers and the Beales where the both familys lived in Albert Squeare.



EastEnders first ever title sequance





Soap opera conventions

To create a soap opera as an individual and as a group we need to understand the characteristics of a soap opera. Understanding the conventions of this unique genre I will be able to create an advance piece of work. Basic conventions:

-          A dramatic storyline constantly continuing to create new plotting and links itself from day to day stories in the soap.

-          Each character has a secret; dramatic irony.

-          Each episode stops at a cliff hanger to continue the drama in the next episode.

-          Something is always going on and there is always a twist.

-          Community; small town, neighbour hoods and family.

-          Hard hitting storylines.

-          Strong female characters (matriarchs, brassy women).

-          Unknown becomes the known eventually; murder, stealing, cheating, etc.

-          Targeted audience is everyone.

-          Real life situations; a sense of realism.

-          Based around several characters; all characters around the community.

-          Build up to one main event, this effect all of the characters and there are a range of stories.

What is a soap opera?

Soap opera is its own genre not created by film but created by the radio in the 1930s (by the Americans), unlike other television genres such as TV quiz shows or the news, soap opera was created to be aimed at housewives to listen/ watch on a regular schedule.

Soap opera is a long run of serial of episodes of everyday people with normal average problems; soap opera relates to real life situations and how people may or may not deal with it, these issues involve a group of characters, there are no main characters. Every episode is linked to its own plot from day to day life and the storyline is carried on from one episode to the next to make the plot bigger and it may or may not get more characters involved into that one plotting or into many plotting and eventually the situation gets bigger and it bursts into everyone finding out.  Serials of episodes are endless, continuously continuing throughout the plotting and creating more plotting to constantly carry on the story.

Successful soap operas can continue for years, like EastEnders. Characters of the soap do not change or get replaced therefore the audience can see the aging and the changing of the characters as if they are part of the scene.