Letter From Britain:
The Queen's Jubilee, the World Cup and EastEnders
By Larry Jaffee
LONDON'In preparation of this issue of the Walford
Gazette, I had the good fortune to be able to visit
London twice within a month. While I was unable to
make it to the Elstree studio where EastEnders is
made, I nevertheless made two fruitful trips that
produced some of the articles that you see here.
On the first leg of the trip, during the second
week of May, as soon as I came into town I
rendezvoused with Wendy Richard (Pauline Fowler) and
her companion John Burns, who picked me up at my
hotel. From there we met Wendy at their favourite
local pub in the fashionable Marble Arch section of
London. The pub was the tiniest I've ever been in.
What was really refreshing was how respectfully the
locals treated Wendy, despite her considerable
celebrity. No one gawked or bothered her for an
autograph ('There's Pauline!').
Wendy reported how she was busy with not only the
hectic schedule of EastEnders tapings, but also with
extra-curricular activities, such as a reunion of
Dad's Army, the forerunner of today's Britcoms, and
her planning with John of a documentary about
perennial favourite Are You Being Served', in which
she played Shirley Brahms (not coincidentally the name
of her beloved dog). Wendy also noted that the hit pop
single 'Come Outside,' which gained her lots of
attention in the mid-1960s, was being released for the
first time on CD by the other member of the duo,
Michael Sarne.
On EastEnders, the nation was gripped with a
storyline centering on Sonia and Dot. I won't give
away the plot because of U.S. public television being
roughly three years behind, but I took pride in the
fact that the past two Gazettes featured exclusive
interviews with actresses Natalie Cassidy and June
Brown. Both were featured on a talk show the next day,
and they reminisced about how close they became
working together. June also was on a programme I
watched the next day promoting a new quiz show, Test
the Nation, presented by the acerbic Anne Robinson
(The Weakest Link). June did brilliantly.
My second trip to London during the last week of
May coincided with the double frenzy of the Golden
Jubilee, celebrating the Queen's 50th year of reign,
and the beginning of the World Cup soccer competition,
in which there were high hopes for the England team.
EastEnders worked both current events into the
storylines. Pauline and Peggy planned local
celebrations in the Queen's honour.
In addition, the Albert Square locals broke into
teams for co-ed, four-player indoor matches. It was
priceless to see Phil Mitchell go on a break-away only
to run into the opposing goalie, Sharon Watts
Mitchell. Peggy didn't miss a beat, bellowing about
her former daughter-in-law, 'That's all it takes to
get Sharon Watts on her back!'
Elsewhere on the telly, the big news in early May
was a party at Kings Cross railway station for the
home video release of Harry Potter and the
Philosopher's Stone, attended by Gillian Taylforth
(Kathy) and Patsy Palmer (Bianca) with their children.
Accompanying me to a concert by Bob Dylan (my
other notable hobby), at the London Arena in the East
End near Canary Wharf, was good mate Deepak Verma
(Sanjay). He recently wrapped up playing a role in a
TV adaptation of Zadie Smith's best-selling book White
Teeth, to air on the BBC this fall. At the Dylan
concert, Deepak was a good sport, continuously getting
hassled by punters wanting to know, 'Where's Gita''
On the radio, I caught a commercial for a
company that installs windows and heard an announcer
with the unmistakable Cockney voice of Frank Butcher
(played by Mike Reid), who chatted up the listeners
with an 'old son.'
At the guest house I stayed at in Islington, the
landlady told me that she often had seen EastEnders
actors in the neighbourhood, including Taylforth (who
shopped in the very same Sainsbury grocery store that
I was in on this trip), and also Susan Tully
(Michelle).
I also met with an executive of BBC Worldwide
whose job it is to meet the merchandise needs of
EastEnders fans. The first four products licensed
include a mobile telephone cover (see article page 2),
a jigsaw puzzle, a Queen Vic teapot, and an EastEnders
board game. We'll see if we can make them available
for sale to readers by the next issue. In addition,
I'm working with BBC Worldwide on getting official
EastEnders t-shirts, another long unavailable, long
requested item.
Meeting Michael Greco (Beppe) was an unexpected,
unplanned highlight of my trip (see page 8). And I
also finally got to meet Anita Dobson (Angie),
following her performance in a play (page 4), and two
nights later also caught Alex Berns (Trevor) in Art.
From the proceedings detailed above, you can see,
crikey, I'm exhausted.
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