5:50pm Thursday 25th February 2010
By Andrew Mosley
IN 1985, as we settled down in our gaff with a nice cup of cha, I says to my old mum, I says, “Mum, the only soaps that will still be going in 2010 will be Albion Market and El Dorado, you mark my words.
"EastEnders’ll be brown bread unless they get rid of that Ian Beale geezer”.
So it comes to pass that, 25 years on, the ’Enders and Beale (Adam Woodyatt) are still with us and, to celebrate the fact, there’s a special live edition of the (for some reason) still popular soap.
Angie and Den have gone, ditto Ethel’s dog and Wellard, but Dot Cotton still stalks the square and, despite the recession, everyone goes down the Queen Vic every night, shoots their mouths off, argues, fights and murders each other.
Someone’s killed Archie Mitchell (Larry Lamb of Gavin And Stacey fame — good job they are not making another series, then) and the finger of suspicion is pointing, as is its want, at absolutely everyone.
There’s crying, shouting, screaming, people running up and down each other’s apples and pears, and the Sweeney’s everywhere. The tension’s rising, but all this endless barracking has set my Hampstead’s (Heath, teeth) on edge. Making me go mutton jeff, it is.
After a bit more arguing, attention turns to Stacey (who’s she?), but not mine. No, I’m more impressed at noticing that none of the living rooms appear to have been decorated in 25 donkey’s ears (years) and the Vic is still a dump populated by some of the gobbiest people you could be unlucky enough to meet on a night out. If I was going down the nuclear sub (pub) I’d rather be bored out of my mind downing a few Aristotles (bottles) and a Britney Spear (beer) with a load of boring farmers in The Woolpack than go there.
Dot Cotton, fresh from a brief appearance on Celebrity Come Dine With Me last week, is still chain smoking away, but most of the rest are gone, including . . . argh, no, she’s still there, Pat (Pam St Clement), still looking as gorgeous as the day she first glided into the square, ie not at all.
Anyway, would you Adam and Eve it, Stacey’s husband Bradley only chucks himself off a roof and the trouble and strife’s well upset.
By the look on her boat race she’s wet her Alan Whickers. “Badleee, Badleeeeeeee,” she shouts at, er, Bradley, who no longer appears to have an “r” in his name.
Who knows what’s been going on? I certainly don’t.
As it finished (Der der der der der der der.... der der der der der etc), I said to my old mum as we settled down in our gaff with another nice cup of cha and a jellied eel: “This’ll be the only soap still going in 25 years and that complete Richard the Third Ian Beale’ll still be on there.
"Brilliant, he is — unpopular, gobby, rubbish actor who knew he would never get a job on any other programme if he left, and he’s still raking in the lolly.
"That diamond geezer Nick Berry, who played Wicksy, was right when he sang Every Loser Wins, you know.”
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