BBC GIVES PEGGY SENDOFF THAT U.S. CAN’T WATCH; BFI DISSES EASTENDERS, AGAIN
By Larry Jaffee
The BBC is sending off Peggy Mitchell in style. Barbara Windsor announced nearly a year ago that she would retire from playing the popular character that has been so central to East- Enders, and her last episode will air in the U.K. on 9 Sept. (U.S. public TV broadcasts are six years or more behind what BBC1 airs, so we’ll have Peggy a good bit longer.) The official BBC website did a great job coming up with various online features under the umbrella “GOODBYE PEGGY MITCHELL,” but the problem is – with the exception of YouTube clips – they can’t be accessed outside the U.K. I really can’t think of a good reason why the BBC feels it needs to deprive American fans of seeing Ms. Windsor explain in an interview how she feels about leaving the job she’s had for 16 years, or what are her personal favourite Peggy moments. We also don’t get to see Peggy’s greatest “slapdowns” with various other characters.At least we can watch some classic scenes at
Meanwhile, a feature article in the June issue of Sight & Sound magazine sounded promising enough. Published by the British Film Institute (BFI), the article “The New Golden Age of British TV Drama” some 3,000 words and four pages later did not have even one mention of EastEnders, which this past spring took home the BAFTA award for Best Continuing Drama Series.
The article, written by BFI curator Mark Duigid, focused on the perception that the U.S. produces better drama, shows like Mad Men and The Wire, and The Sopranos before them, created and nurtured by American pay cable networks like HBO.
Duigid’s EE snub is not completely surprising, considering the BFI’s dismissive attitude of soap opera in general and EastEnders in particular. A decade ago, EastEnders didn’t even rank among the BFI’s poll of the 100 Best British TV Programmes; it finished No. 132 (Coronation Street, No. 40). In fairness, all the BFI did was tabulate the industry’s choices. Ballots were given to 1,600 programme makers, performers, writers, technicians, executives, critics, academic analysts, historians, activists and archivists.
And mind you, EastEnders’ poor showing in poor showing in the BFI TV 100 came three years after it won in 1997 the Best Drama award (not Best Soap Opera) from the prestigious British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA).
A recurring theme at a September 2000 public discussion at the National Film Theatre to review the poll’s results was the glaring omission of EastEnders from the list. An industry panel and audience members at the event concurred that the series is so easily taken for granted as the result of its omnipresence in the tabloid-driven British media. Or could it be a snobbishness that can’t fathom that a serial could be anything other than ‘lowbrow’?
John Yorke, current Controller of BBC Drama Production, comments: “Historically ‘soaps’ have tended to be excluded from these things. I lose no sleep!” (Maybe not over EE not getting respect, but perhaps over the constant threat of government budget cuts?) Former EastEnders writer Andrew Collins, currently film editor of the BBC-published Radio Times weekly magazine, had a lot more to say: “I read that article with interest, as it shone a rare light of positivity on British TV drama, and countered the raving pro-Americanism that characterises much writing here about TV drama. (I am an unashamed fan of the best U.S. TV drama too.) I had never considered any prejudice against soaps at the BFI until you mentioned it. You do still encounter critical resistance, because soap is still regarded as practical, populist, schedule-filler, used by broadcasters as a guarantee of regular audiences, hence its heavy marketing on all the big terrestrial channels. Because I no longer watch EastEnders I am unable to comment on its current quality. But certainly when I was there, in the early part of the decade, some brilliant writing was being produced, under huge pressure. And had been since the start. I still rate the two-handers and, in Dot’s case, one-hander, of Tony Jordan. The fact that he has moved from EastEnders to writing and producing big populist BBC drama like Life on Mars and Hustle probably means he will continue to struggle for critical kudos. Critics will always focus on one-off drama on TV here. Or even big fiveparters like Criminal Justice or Five Days. The event stuff. Soap just rolls on, critically unnoticed and unloved, three or four or five nights a week, and is watched by millions of people. I don’t take it personally.”
The BFI didn’t always view soap with such derision. In 1987, it published Public Secrets: EastEnders and its Audience. And in 1981, as part of the BFI’s Television Monograph series, a group of academics studied Coronation Street. Both books examined television’s role in society and the reasons behind soap popularity. EastEnders is the closest we can get on our home screens to the kitchen-sink realism of the “golden age of British drama,” circa early 1960s.
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