EastEnders at 40: How Britain's soaps became the soul of the nation

When he created Coronation Street, Tony Warren was determined to bring the authentic voices and lives of working-class people into the nation’s living rooms. The language, stories, humour and characters he’d first heard sitting beneath his grandmother’s kitchen table became the bedrock of the show’s style.

More than 60 years later, British soaps remain at the vanguard of working-class representation on screen, telling stories of everyday life in all its extraordinary, ordinary glory. And they are still written, run and acted by people from working-class backgrounds. Earlier this month, one long-term soap fan, Russell T Davies, took to Instagram to praise that evening’s EastEnders.

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“As fine a piece of writing and acting as you’ll ever see,” began the Doctor Who showrunner. “Phil (Steve McFadden) ends up stuck with a complete stranger, Livi (Lisa Allen). He’s all silent and withdrawn, but left alone, she looks at him and, out of the blue, she says, ‘You don’t fool me. You’re not a miserable sod. You’re a sad sod. I can see it in your eyes. So was I when my dad died, for a long time. I know I said I went to that garage to help my brother out. Truth be told, it helped me. The grease. The mess. Paperwork. Decades-old invoices stuffed in drawers. The rev of the engine. Reminded me of my dad. And keeping that place alive, it helped keep me alive. I found joy in it.’ God, what a speech! Magnificent. That’s better than Beckett!”

Jonny O’Neill, who wrote that episode of EastEnders, is a born and bred East-Ender. He grew up there, attended the University of East London, had early works staged at the Hackney Empire and the Half Moon Theatre in Limehouse. He’s now written 99 episodes of EastEnders.

Soaps nurture talent in front of and behind the camera. Filmed at great speed and intensity, by up to four units working across multiple storylines, these productions create a huge amount of high-quality drama. And they require a vast army of creatives – making them a perfect training ground. This talent pathway has been around a long time. And it is not hard to see the positive impact. Before he created State of Play and Shameless, Paul Abbott spent years as a script editor, story editor and writer on Coronation Street. 

And the success of six-time Bafta-winner Sally Wainwright has fuelled a whole production industry in Yorkshire. Wainwright learnt her trade in what she told Big Issue was the ‘misogynist bloodbath’ of the 1990s Coronation Street writers’ room

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From Happy Valley and Gentleman Jack to upcoming series Riot Women, so much of the working-class wit, wisdom and women of Wainwright’s work can be traced back to her Corrie roots. 

So can her lead actors Suranne Jones and Sarah Lancashire, who both broke into the business via the talent pipeline that links Oldham Theatre Workshop with Coronation Street. 

It survives today and has never been more vital as barriers to entry are exacerbated by the cost of living crisis, cuts to arts education funding, and the cost of drama school.

Millie Gibson now stars alongside Ncuti Gatwa in Doctor Who. She adapted so smoothly to life in the Tardis because, after her passion for performing was ignited at Oldham Theatre Workshop, she had three years on the Corrie cobbles as Kelly Neelan. 

That is where Russell T Davies first encountered her. Building a character, learning lines, filming at speed – first Corrie, next stop the entire universe. Gibson’s predecessor Mandip Gill could tell a similar story, learning the trade on Hollyoaks just as Jenna Coleman explored Emmerdale before venturing into time and space.

Davies has also talked to Big Issue about his love of soaps. “I’ve worked on soaps myself. And I’m possibly the final viewer. I feel very alone these days, because there’s not many of us. But soaps should be taken seriously.”

Gone are the days when EastEnders can claim ‘everyone’s talking about it’. And we are a world away from 30 million of us watching Den Watts deliver divorce papers to Angie (Anita Dobson, now also starring in Doctor Who) at Christmas, 1986. But the audience is growing again. Last year, there were 156 million viewer hours for EastEnders on iPlayer – a year-on-year rise of 19%.

Because soaps are more than just the training ground for the next generation of talent. They are also the Wembley, Old Trafford or Elland Road. They stand alone as dramas created with great skill under the relentless forward-march of plot, plot, plot; character, character, character. 

The unique connection they build with audiences over decades means they can also guide viewers through complex times. No one knew this better than Phil Redmond, whose pioneering work on Brookside, Grange Hill and Hollyoaks combined working-class representation and politics with masterful storytelling. 

We grow to care about characters who visit our living rooms every week, so we also care about big issues they face. 

Witness the way EastEnders, via Mark Fowler’s storyline from 1991 – developed with the Terrence Higgins Trust – brought compassion and facts to the national conversation around HIV and AIDS, combatting the myths pushed by the tabloids of the era. This was public service broadcasting at its best. And they did it again in 2023.

Doctors was cancelled last year. Holby City is no longer with us. Some of us still recall how The Bill gave so many actors their first break.

Proper representation, and more brilliant writing like O’Neill’s, requires soaps to be supported. Otherwise these routes into the TV and film industry will vanish. As Idris Elba, original cast member of Channel 5’s Family Affairs said: “Talent is everywhere, opportunity isn’t.”

Soaps are a key component of the cultural infrastructure. So, 40 years after Dennis Watts delivered the immortal first line: “Cor, stinks in ’ere, dunnit?” as the body of Reg Cox was discovered in his Albert Square flat, here’s to 40 more years of EastEnders.

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