An EastEnders Christmas Carol
By Deborah Gilbert
It came to me in a dream: The ghost of EastEnders past. And it made me think; what if the producers and scriptwriters at Elstree decided to use the dramatic plot device of dream sequences to tell a story?
What if, for the holiday season, we were treated to an EastEnders version of the classic A Christmas Carol, with Ian Beale perfectly cast as Ebeneezer Scrooge? Not a literal version of A Christmas Carol mind you, just the same story, set in the present-day Albert Square. A Christmas Carol is probably the best known use of dream sequences, but this plot device has also been used successfully in current dramas such as The Sopranos.
The great thing about dreams in drama is that you can use characters who are dead. So once Ian goes to sleep, and wakes up into his nightmare (guided by the ghost of Christmas past), he could interact with well-loved characters from EastEnders past. I can just see it now....
Ian is alone and sound asleep, on Christmas Eve, when a nightmare makes him sit bolt upright in bed.
Standing at the foot of his bed (bickering) are Lou Beale and Arthur Fowler. Each thought they were to be the ghost of Christmas past, and they do not like having to share the duties with each other. They, of course, cannot agree on how to proceed. If Ian were not so terrified, he’d be amused to see Arthur and Lou bickering, in death, the same way they did in life.
They do manage to tell him that they are there to show him the errors of his ways.
In his fright, Ian rushes outside and through the Square, but things are not as they were hours earlier.
It’s daylight, even though his watch says it’s midnight. More frightening, as he rushes through the Square, he sees Mark working on the fruit and veg stall, having a chat with Barry. On another stall is Jamie. They all look at one another, roll their eyes and laugh at the state of Ian (as usual).
Needing a drink, Ian bursts into the Vic, sees the back of a blonde woman behind the bar, and says, “Tracy, you won’t believe the dream I just had! I need a drink!” She turns around, and it’s not Tracy—it’s Cindy. “What was that?” she asks. Ian’s thrown back.
s she pours, Cindy gestures with her head, to the other end of the bar, and there sits Laura, who stands up, comes over to say, “Hello, Ian.”
Laura sits down, and tells him to do the same. “We need to chat,” she says.
In his shock and fright, Ian just stammers, wide-eyed, and then we hear a voice say, “What’s the matter, Ian? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” He turns and sees Ethel, sitting at the corner table with Lou and Arthur. “I knew he wouldn’t take this well,” says Arthur. To which Lou responds, “Oh, shut up!”
The conversation that then transpires between Cindy, Laura and Ian could be a great, part dramatic/part humorous three-hander, as Cindy and Laura double-team him and compare notes (“Did he do this with you?”-type stuff). With occasional interjections from the eavesdropping Lou, Ethel and Arthur.
In fact, the potential for amazing two-handers (and scenes of all kind—both comic and dramatic) throughout this whole story is a veritible goldmine. For a scriptwriter, who is also a long-time EastEnders junkie, it would be a dream come true (no pun intended!) And it would be a dream come true for fans one and all.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Vic, sit Den and Angie. Den (wearing a yellow daffodil as a boutonniere) is the only other live person in the dream, so he can’t see any of the ghosts, and doesn’t know that Angie is sitting next to him, looking up at him with the same, “despite it all I still love ya, ya big lug” look she had in life.
Den proceeds to lecture Ian about appreciating what he has, and Angie is talking back, at Den, even though only Ian can hear her. When Den starts to say that he doesn’t want to see Ian make the same mistakes he has, Angie softens a bit. And in this three-way conversation there is a kind of closure for Angie’s ghost, when Den talks about how she was his one real love but he was too selfish to put in the effort to make things work.
Mark tells Ian how that he has everything he always wanted: kids—and yet he only gives lip service to appreciating them, that he doesn’t spend enough time with them—he’s always pawning them off on others because he wrongly thinks his work is more important.
Then Ian hears a voice from the corner, “Come, sit down, son.” It’s his dad Pete sitting at the corner table. They tearfully embrace, and have a great heart-to-heart. Ian pours out how much he’s missed Pete, and needed him all these years. Pete apologises for his own shortcomings as a father, and urges Ian not to repeat his mistakes.
Eventually, Ian wakes back up into real life: it’s Peter, Lucy and Bobby jumping on his bed on Christmas morning. Ian leads them downstairs to open their presents, and as they do, he vows to make changes in the coming year. And we see all the ghosts, looking through the windows grinning, before they fade away.
Do I think this EastEnders Christmas Carol Special will ever get produced? I don’t know, but a girl can dream, can’t she? Duf, duf...
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