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E20 – Not Your Old Man’s EastEnders
By Priscilla Mayfield
Watching the EastEnders Internet
spin-off E20 I couldn’t help thinking
of the brilliant Ben Elton’s
“Nozin’ Aroun’”, a sketch from
“Demolition,” the very first
episode of The Young Ones in
1982.
You know, where the brilliant
Ben is playing the host of a television
show FOR (enthusiastic
thumbs-up) young adults, BY (enthusiastic
thumbs-up) young
adults, which is also “not your (enthusiastic
thumbs-up) old man’s”
sort of television.
(Search for “Nozin’ Aroun’” on
www.youtube.com if you haven’t
seen it, or are seized with a sudden
urge to see it again, as I am just
from writing this.)
That was just what E20 looked
like, if “Nozin’ Aroun’” had been a
soap opera, and, as it turns out, that
is pretty much what it is – written
and acted BY young adults, FOR
young adults. Our EastEnders too,
to paraphrase “Nozin’ Aroun’”.
For some unfathomable reason,
E20 is “not available” to U.S. residents
trying to get on the BBC E20
website, although you can watch
nine minutes of the pilot episode
on the youtube.com EastEnders
channel by searching for:
“Eastenders E20 - Series 1 -
Episode 1 - Part 1.” (In Southern
California, we were lucky enough
to see it through the auspices of
some expat Brits in our midst.)
Released as part of regular OLD
EastEnders’ 25th anniversary year
commemoration, with the idea that
it would bring in younger, Internetsavvy
viewers, E20 also clearly
serves notice that the show is still
viable two decades and a half on.
With which I think most of those
reading this would agree.
Not your old man’s EastEnders
is represented by four disparate yet
strangely sympathetic, problemridden
teenagers, two girls, two
boys, their ethnicities reflecting the
multiculti East End … kind of an
EastEnders brand-splitting along
the lines of Muppet Babies or Tiny
Toons.
One’s a scrappy amateur boxer
who’s got a pesky, alcoholic deadbeat
for a dad, one’s a self-aggrandizing
wide boy who says his parents
were killed in a “drive-by,”
one is a sweet, extremely religious
girl who finds herself pregnant,
and the one with a permanent
scowl has blue hair.
Individually, they don’t bear up
under close scrutiny, with the exception
of the very engaging Fatboy,
he of the dead parents claim.
Taken as a unit, however, there is
some deep TVQ there.
The appeal is heightened by the
occasional Love Gift of an OLD
EastEnders character floating
through, starting off right with a
very nice turn by Gran Slater, Mo
Harris.
And it’s quite a startling treat to
see the familiar Albert Square,
which is almost, like the house in a
Gothic novel, a character in its own
right, peopled with new characters
who act as if they have a right to be
there.
The first release of E20 online
was enough of a success that good
things resulted. One good thing is
that the show is being broadcast on
regular television, BBC3, in an
omnibus edition, making it potentially
easier for those blocked from
the Internet release to see. Another
good thing is that a second season
was commissioned, with an allnew
cast of troubled teenies, set for
a September 2010 release.
This paved the way for the popular
original characters Leon the
boxer, Fatboy the wide boy, Mercy
the religious sweetie and Zsa-Zsa
of the blue hair to be absorbed into
the churning hive that is regular
OLD EastEnders, yet another good
thing.
And a little lagniappe, rife with
comedy potential, is already starting
to be fulfilled: Fatboy can be
found on Twitter at
www.twitter.com/manlikefatboy,
tweeting things like “Jim Branning
is the OG. Original Gangsta,” and
“Getting evils from Phil. KMT I
could take him if I wanted…. But I
gotta be somewhere.”
I don’t know what the new season
will bring. I am going to go out
on a limb here and guess there’ll be
some teen angst, and some teen
anomie, and quite probably a good
deal of intergenerational disagreement,
disapproval and nattering.
And we welcome every bit.
