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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