That's neat. Peggy's expression is my favorite. What are they so shocked by?

I think they are shocked by the square turning into a circle.

Welcome back Carol!! One of the all time best.

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<span style="font-size:19.5pt;"><font face="Verdana">EastEnders: making a crisis out of a drama</font></span>

<span style="font-size:10.5pt;"><b><font face="Verdana">To clamorous hype tonight’s EastEnders episode will be broadcast live — just as television drama always used to be</font></b></span>

<span style="font-size:7.5pt;"><b><font face="Tahoma"> Andrew Billen; Video: Sarah Bloch</font></b></span>

<span style="font-size:9pt;"><font face="Verdana">To celebrate its quarter century, this evening EastEnders will, for the first time, be broadcast live. By 8.30pm we shall, we are promised, know who killed Archie Mitchell. As a means of keeping a murderer’s identity secret prior to transmission, it certainly beats the traditional method, employed legendarily for Dallas’s “Who shot JR?” cliff-hanger. Here, you may recall, each cast member was individually filmed fessing up and even they did not know which confession would be shown. The BBC would have us believe that this live edition is no comparable gimmick but proof of its most popular soap’s innovative vigour. It is, in reality, a reactionary move, not only because Coronation Street had the same idea in 2000 for its 40th anniversary, but because live television drama is nothing new but rather harks back to the earliest days of television and, beyond them, to theatre itself.

Originally, all drama on television had to be live simply because video tape had not been invented; if a producer wanted to record a programme he pointed a film camera at a studio monitor. When five years ago BBC Four remade the 1953 sci-fi yarn The Quatermass Experiment, it was in tribute to that age and, despite the use of modern locations, viewers commented on its anachronistic feel. For the actors and their director, Sam Miller, on the other hand, it was clearly a thrilling experience. When an actor dried and was bailed out by David Tennant, Miller insists that he could see the fear in his eyes. “I had better not say who it was. He still hasn’t forgiven me.” Later, racing between outdoor locations, Tennant slipped in the mud. “We played it back in slow motion and at one point he actually flipped. His feet were higher than his head. Somehow, his professionalism saved him and he landed on his feet. But he was like a gazelle.”

Even more alarming stories from the era of single-take telly are retold in Kate Dunn’s enjoyable book Do Not Adjust Your Set. Forgotten lines were a constant problem, although if an actor completely blanked, a “cut key” would be employed to simulate a short breakdown in sound. Dixon of Dock Green’s star, the pensionable Jack Warner, was particularly prone to forgetfulness and would announce an impending senior moment to his fellow actors with a trademark sniff. Amid such tension, actors would frequently throw up before, after and — occasionally — during transmission. Nor were nerves the worst that could befall a cast. Sets caught fire, actors were injured in fights. Tragically, the young actor Gareth Jones collapsed and died during the transmission of a play called Underground. For viewers, television must have been full of mystery as actors wandered into view looking lost, the dead, assuming they were off camera, got up and walked, sets wobbled and special effects broke down. Plus ça change. Sky Arts last summer broadcast six new plays live. At the end of Jackie and Matthew Kay’s Mind Away the series initiator, Sandi Toksvig, told the studio audience that this was the last time she was shelling out for a snow machine (sleet at best).

Talk, however, to Colin Welland, who played PC David Graham on one of the last BBC series to be transmitted live, Z-Cars (1962-65), and his enthusiasm for live TV is undimmed. What you notice is that he is describing a heightened version of the adrenalin rush of theatre, and this is fitting. Until the mid-1980s most television drama, although recorded and edited, effectively was theatre, a fact reflected in those distinguished early titles Armchair Theatre, Play for Today, The Wednesday Play and Play of the Month. It was only after the prestige attracted by Granada’s filmed Brideshead Revisited that television subtly changed into a filmic medium. Nowadays most television drama is virtually indistinguishable from cinema, and modern post-production and HD cameras make you think you are watching celluloid even when it is in fact tape.

Television undoubtedly lost something with this move from the theatrical to the cinematic tradition. With the liberation from studio to location, picture began to win over words. Scenes were much reduced in length; dialogue became more epigrammatic. The writer’s craft bowed to the director’s. The one place the older, and more theatrical lineage survives is, in fact, in the soaps, which for reasons of speed and budget remain grounded in their permanent studios. I would argue that introducing a live element to these, except as a kind of joke, is largely irrelevant — unless producers are really so cynical that they want audiences to tune in hoping that Barbara Windsor will forget her lines or June Brown will fall off her stool in the Queen Vic. It is not, after all, as if we viewers are in the studio with them. The actors cannot react to us, wait for our laughs.

Live TV drama is truly interesting only when it modifies the genre it is tampering with. The best example may be the 2005 live episode of The West Wing in which Alan Alda and Jimmy Smits acted out a presidential debate and the fast-moving political fantasy deliberately became a theatre piece celebrating the Aristotelian unities of time, space and action (others might say that the episode merely betrayed The West Wing’s origins in the feverish, Broadway-obsessed mind of its writer, Aaron Sorkin).

Yet for all my reservations that tonight's EastEnders will prove a pointless gimmick, I still hope I am wrong. Maybe pure fear will increase its dramatic wattage. Sam Miller recalls addressing his troupe 20 minutes before the live transmission of The Quatermass Experiment. “There was,” he says, “this most extraordinary atmosphere. I could only liken the sheer exultant terror to people about to jump out of a plane. And what was interesting was the performance energy that translated into. It lifted it to a slightly different level. The silences, for instance, felt really powerful, very long. And when it was all over there was this euphoric high.”

If the audience experiences anything close to a euphoric high tonight, we cynics will have to concede that The EastEnders Experiment, as we might call it, has proved us wrong. Break a leg, guys.

The live episode of EastEnders is on BBC One tonight at 8pm</font></span>

<span style="font-size:10.5pt;"><b><font face="Tahoma">http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/tv_and_radio/article7032546.ece</font></b></span></p>

Only 1.5 hours to go.Can`t wait to find out who the killer is.

My bet is on Ian.

This was in the NYTimes, but seems to be a syndicated piece.

UK Soap 'EastEnders' Celebrates 25 Years of Misery Sign in to Recommend

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: February 19, 2010

Filed at 6:42 p.m. ET

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

Millions of Britons wanted to know who did it; thousands placed 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 tuned in to learn Stacey Slater had murdered him in revenge for raping her.

The BBC said even the actor playing the killer did not know whodunit until half an hour before the live transmission. The cast rehearsed 10 possible endings as it prepared for a complex broadcast involving 51 actors, 36 camera operators and 13 makeup artists.

British soaps have a special place in the nation's heart, attracting huge ratings and generating political debate, despite being gritty, unglamorous and routinely derided by cultural commentators.

''American soaps are about watching beautiful people suffer,'' said Tim Teeman, arts editor of The Times of London newspaper and a big 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,'' which is marking its 50th birthday this year. ''EastEnders'' is set in Albert Square, a TV version of a typical working-class London district. There's a Tube station, Victorian houses, a street market, a cafe, a laundromat and a pub, the Queen Victoria, that serves as the center of community life.

The Queen Vic is where the show's first great villain, ''Dirty'' Den Watts, served his wife Angie with divorce papers at Christmas 1986 after she had lied about having terminal cancer -- an event watched by 30 million people, more than half the British population.

More recently, it 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 more than one character has come back from the dead -- 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.''

The stars, too, are expected to remain down-to-earth. Gillian Taylforth, who starred on ''EastEnders'' for 15 years, said her family had been less than thrilled to learn she had got a part in a soap.

''I said: 'I've got this fantastic new job,''' she told the BBC on Friday. ''And my mum and dad went: 'Oh,' and their faces dropped ... They said: 'We thought you were going to tell us you'd got engaged.'''

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

Two 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 fiancee 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 story line has been welcomed by viewers, with many fans rooting for Syed and Christian's romance to succeed.

''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. And the audience is on their side, 100 percent.''

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On the Net: http://www.bbc.co.uk/eastenders/twentyfive/

Thanks for the articles. The NYT one is better than I expected, perhaps because they don't know that much about the show. I'm glad the usual cliches (it's so gritty, it's so depressing!) were kept to something of a minimum.

Thank you for the live article too Sylph.

I hate what they did to Archie. They have, in the space of a few months, made him into a rapist, and now someone who raped his own daughter. I don't believe that this was something which was initially built into his character, and they have not really explored any of the consequences of rape. It's just a plot device. When Kathy Beale was raped it was a huge and long-term impact on her life.

Well, so much for Bradley not being killed off for his exit. LOL!

I wonder if they will write Stacey out. All they do with her is pile on the misery, but now, she has caused Bradley's death, in that she knew all along she had killed Archie yet she let him become a prime suspect, she was out clubbing and laughing while he was having a breakdown, she let him panic for months, leading to his death.

I just don't know where this character can go after this. You can't get much more miserable or devastated than this, and they've ripped a lot of the soul out of the character. If she could do that to Bradley than she would do it to anyone.

Edited February 20, 201015 yr by CarlD2

Ladbrokes said it saw the busiest 24 hours of betting on a television series in the run up to the big reveal.

William Hill took £500,000 (€568,290) in bets on the identity of the murderer, beating the amount placed on who shot JR.

Spokesman Rupert Adams said: "The BBC were amazing keeping this quiet. We have broken even which in a market like this is amazing. We have had a rollercoaster but have enjoyed every minute."

Ladbrokes took £100,000 (€113,658), which was spread across more than 30 different 'EastEnders' characters.

I found Bradley

falling off the roof

an awful story choice. Completely random, silly... Just terrible.

Edited February 20, 201015 yr by Sylph

Judging by the way he put his fingers in his mouth, Jake Wood agrees with you.

I did think it was silly. Thankfully we had some advance warning. I'm glad the tabloids are there for that. If I didn't know we'd have these stupid moments like Tanya burying Max alive or Nick blowing up the cafe I'd think someone just lost a bet right before taping.

Edited February 20, 201015 yr by CarlD2

From digital spy

EastEnders' live anniversary edition averaged just under 15m last night and peaked at 16.6m in the final five minutes.

The half-hour live broadcast, which saw Bradley plummet to his death from the roof of The Vic before Stacey was unveiled as Archie's killer, pulled in an average of 14.91m (54.6%). The number peaked at 16.58m (59.4%) between 8.25pm and 8.30pm. BBC Three's repeat showing from 10.30pm added a further 1.42m (7.7%).

The George Lamb-fronted BBC Three reaction show EastEnders Live: The Aftermath drew 4.3m (15.9%) in the hour from 8.30pm and was by far the most-watched multichannel programme of the day. The figures were also BBC Three's best ever ratings and the highest ever ratings for a multichannel programme. A further 1.21m (9.4%) caught the repeat from 11pm.

Coronation Street's double bill, during which Gail told Tina the truth about Joe and the police arrived on the Street to question Gail, drew 9.94m (41%) and 8.63m (31.3%) at 7.30pm and 8.30pm.

ITV2's repeats in the hour from 11.40pm added 142k (1.4%) and 212k (4.8%) respectively.

Emmerdale's offering took 7.48m (34%).

That's huge! Shows what happens when a network actively promotes and encourages a soap. And it halts some of the decline of soaps in the UK.

Santer is going to get all kinds of offers now that he's left Eastenders. I don't envy Bryan Kirkwood.

So all this time, Stacey knew not only that she killed Archie, but that her baby wasn't his? (Who is the father, btw?) I mean, [!@#$%^&*]. What kind of woman lies LIKE that to the man she loves? She never even broke a sweat about the whole thing, and poor Bradley was coming unspooled the whole time. I want to slap the bitch. Ugh. And now she literally has Bradley's blood on her hands too. I wouldn't be surprised if they just let Bradley take the fall (haha literally) as Archie's murderer and Stacey and the baby get to live happily ever after. As sick as it all was, I still think that's what Bradley would want.

Was not at all surprised to learn that Archie had sexually abused Ronnie. That was bubbling under the surface with her the whole time.

Roxy was being a cow. It's about time she realizes who her dad was stops trying to paint him as some "misguided" bad guy.

The acting was pretty good for it being a live show.