Excellent Enders Storm The Soap Awards

      

On Wednesday night, ITV screened the annual 12^th British Soap Awards bash, held at BBC Television Centre on May 7^th.  The night was dominated by the stars of BBC’s EastEnders, which scooped a staggering ten awards, the highest for any soap in any given year.

EastEnders, celebrating its 25^th anniversary this year was a class above the rest from the competitors this year, Coronation Street, Doctors, Emmerdale and Hollyoaks.  It scooped all of the key awards, including Best British Soap for a third consecutive year.  Its spectacular live episode, as part of the anniversary celebration in February, which featured Stacey Slater being revealed as Archie Mitchell’s killer was the clear winner of Best Single Episode.  Lacey Turner, who is leaving the show later in the year, scooped the double for Best Actress and Best Dramatic Performance.  Also collected a duo of awards was Scott Maslen.  The former star of The Bill, who plays the dynamic Jack Branning won the Best Actor category and was voted Sexiest Male for the second consecutive year.  Charlie Clements, whose character Bradley Branning, fell to his shocking death in the live episode won Best Exit, holding off stiff competition from Jamie Lomas demise in Hollyoaks.  Finally, the evil Archie Mitchell, played by the distinguished Larry Lamb won Best Villain.

With EastEnders storming away with all the key awards, it left the rest fighting over the minor crumbs and comforts.  Like Hollyoaks last year, Emmerdale was nominated in every single category, yet failed to pick up an award.  That was apart from established writer Bill Lyons, who won the Special Achievement Award.  Lyons has been part of the writing team since 1984, and was behind the brains of the dramatic Emmerdale Plane Crash storyline in December 1993, which turned the show’s fortunes around.  For the second consecutive year, Hollyoaks had a tough time of things, as their domination of the 2008 ceremony seems a distant memory.  However, they did win the Most Spectacular Scene award, for the parachute skydiving stunt during its Hollyoaks Later show last October and saw Sarah Barnes (Loui Batley) plunge to her death. 

BBC daytime show Doctors did well again, collecting two awards, for Best Dramatic Performance from a Young Actor/Actress and Best On-Screen Partnership, which left Coronation Street, normally a traditional frontrunner with a tame three winners.  Michelle Keegan won Sexiest Female and there was a deserved Lifetime Achievement Award for Betty Driver, who is famous for Betty’s hotpots in the Rovers Return.  The most emotional part of the how evening was the fitting tribute to the dearly missed Maggie Jones.  Maggie, who played the hilarious Blanche Hunt, Deirdre Barlow’s mum in Coronation Street passed away last Christmas.  As the VT finished of her video tribute, the whole auditorium stood up in appreciation and applause, with many tears shed for a fantastic icon of Weatherfield.

However, the night firmly belonged as expected to EastEnders.  The other soaps have a lot to do over the next twelve months, to avoid this kind of whitewash from the Walford stars again.   

   

EastEnders Live Episode - Now That Was A Surprise...

Last Friday, EastEnders celebrated its 25^th birthday, and in some style too.  The show’s first ever live episode went down in a grand manner, which a shock death and the revelation of Archie Mitchell’s killer, which kept everyone guessing until the final moment.

The scriptwriters and producers on the BBC show spent a load of time putting the effort into producing a gripping half an hour of drama for its millions of fans and so it proved out.  All of Archie’s suspects were acting on edge, realising that their actions on Christmas Day were coming back to haunt them.  Janine Butcher was planning to runaway, both Jack and Max Branning clearly had something to hide and Roxy Mitchell continuous questioning of Sister Ronnie’s motives may have been dogged, but certainly suggested to the normal viewer that the tension was bubbling. 

Mixing in Ricky and Bianca’s wedding was a great idea, because it meant that although Archie’s killer was going to take the main plotline, there was something just as important going on in the background.  Maybe Ricky and Bianca can break soapland’s traditional plotline of recent times and have a happy and successful marriage.  The episode also had the two longest serving characters, Ian Beale and Dot Cotton watching a very old videotape, which had moments from some of Walford’s famous characters down the years, including Arthur Fowler and Sharon Watts.

The episode culminated with the police, swarming all over Albert Square to find Bradley Branning, who was being urged by both Jack and a reluctant Max to flee before they came.  Bradley and his new wife, Stacey Slater made a break for it, as Max and Jack tried every trick in the book to stall the police.  Unfortunately, Bradley forgot the passports and had to head back to get them.  The police caught up with him and in a desperate attempt to escape their clutches, he fell off a rooftop, plunging to his untimely death.  As the Vic onlookers rushed out to see the horror, across the Square, Stacey confessed to Max that she had been the one that had done away with Archie.  The aftermath will be very intriguing to follow now.  It was revealed after the episode that Lacey Turner, who plays Stacey, had been struggling for days with a losing voice, so her scenes on Friday were even better, considering that trouble.

Though there were a couple of line/continuity errors, it went really well for a live episode and with 14million tuning it, the BBC bosses certainly got the figures they were after, completing a brilliant week for the company, which had seen ITV’s two midweek picks, the BRIT Awards and the return of the UEFA Champions League stuffed in the ratings by medical drama, Holby City. 

To conclude, credit where it’s due, well done to Dredrick Slater and his team, plus the actors/actresses for producing a captivating half an hour live drama on Friday night.  What is in store next remains to be seen, but with former Hollyoaks producer Bryan Kirkwood, who turned the Channel 4 soap from 2006-2009, EastEnders could be set for a return to the glory days, after years in the doldrums of dodgy storylines and dismal characters.