EastEnders (original) (raw)
EastEnders is a popular BBC television soap opera, which has run since 1985.
It is set in and around the fictional Albert Square, ostensibly located in the equally fictional London borough of Walford in London's East End. Much of the action revolves around the market, and the nearby public house, the Queen Victoria.
The Queen Vic, as it is known to its customers, is the primary meeting place for the show's characters and is the site of many of the show's major storylines. The first known landlord, Dirty Den Watts (played by Leslie Grantham), endured an acrimonious divorce from his wife Angie, only to be shot and presumed killed until his return in 2003. A subsequent landlady Peggy Mitchell (Barbara Windsor) emerged as a leading character in the 1990s, enduring breast cancer and coping with the on-going problems of her adult sons Phil Mitchell and Grant Mitchell.
Walford has a fictional London postal district, London E20, and a fictional tube station, Walford East, which is located on the Eastenders tube map in the position normally occupied by the real Bromley-by-Bow tube station.
It is actually filmed at Borehamwood to the north-west of London.
EastEnders is one of the most popular programmes on British television and regularly attracts between 15 and 20 million viewers. Its main rival for ratings is Coronation Street on rival station ITV.