Classic Eastenders on the Drama channel

[dingdongdigeridoo]

So, classic Eastenders starts airing on the UKTV Drama channel from tomorrow! Two episodes from noon, and they’ll also be on UKTV catchup.

Use this thread to talk about Den, Angie, Arthur, poodle perms, poor fashion choices and Ethel’s Willy.

Wicksy and Kathy dated in real life
And Angie and Lofty definitely did for a short time

Yeah I was wondering if it was Kathy and Wicksy. I remember hearing at the time and feeling 🤪. But then I remember Gillian Taylforth sorting out her husband's "stomach ache" on the hard shoulder. At later date.

These episodes seem really cut about. You see a character somewhere and then they pop up somewhere completely different in the next scene. And tonight, unless I wasn't concentrating, Andy was trying to kiss Debbie when he fell over decorating. Next time we see him he's drunk in the Vic and Angie's giving him coffee upstairs. 🤨

I noticed the weird continuity issues as well. Also, why does it black out half way through?

Lots of zooming in and out too. It’s like someone’s dad with a camcorder.

Lou has fallen ill and now they’re making a ground floor room for her. All this time they’ve had a parlour, yet Michelle hasn’t had her own room. Poor girl!

I’m enjoying seeing 80s Christmases with slightly crappy decorations and carols on the radio! Christmas is far too tasteful nowadays.

I think I'm missing episodes. I know there is catch up but I'm currently watching it after midnight Monday to Friday.

Two episodes that is

I liked the prescient ‘smoking will be banned in pubs’ conversation from today’s episode. And I’d forgotten about Sharon and Ian’s short lived romance!

If you’re missing episodes you can watch them on the UKTV app.

Sharon and Ian had a romance? Bleuuugh.

Having watched these old episodes, I’ve realised how creepy the situation was with the Mitchell brothers. Sharon became sisters in law with her friend’s mum, and then eventually married her ex-husband. The square is very incestuous.

It’s not really a blazing hot fling dingdong I think he just cooked her some lasange or something. No actual kissing or anything!

I dont really understand the layout od the houses compared with the modern day square, google twlls me that mary lives in a flat , why does it appear ro be only one room and the downstairs "flat" was where Ali and suethen Dot lived inn, are they in one room too? ,It than became than Slater house at one pointGoogle also tells me the house that Debbie and Andy lived in became three flats , it doesnt look big enough to be three flats?

They are definitely cutting some of the scenes. I have dvd recordings I bought off eBay many years ago (before the bbc put a stop to them for copyright reasons) and the episodes are not flowing like they did. There was quite a lot of racist language in the first year and all that has been cut out which is probably why some scenes seem disjointed.

Ooh, lasagne. To be fair, I’d go for a good homemade lasagne over a steamy fling nowadays.

Mary and Sue’s places are bedsits. They are a combined bedroom and living area with ‘cooking facilities’ which is normally just a fridge and microwave or a small hob. Bathrooms are shared between two or three bedsits. They’re quite grim and are less common nowadays, most converted houses are turned into studio flats so at least have their own private bathrooms.

I could see Debbie and Andy’s place being turned into three studios. Some of the places I’ve stayed in London have been utterly tiny. My friend had a studio barely bigger than her double bed with a shower cubicle next to the kitchen and a bathroom where you could barely close the door when having a wee! She didn’t have people round much.

So the rest of the house would probably also be bedsits bit we just dont see the rest of the occupants?

Well yes saying that a frend of mine had a studio flat years ago it was a long thin room with a bed a one end thanna screen and a lounge bit with a sofa a tv and a tiny kitchen and tiny shower room it probably wasent any bigger than my lounge tbh and i only live in a two bedroom house .

I think Lofty lives in one of the bedsits too.

So.. who lives in those places now? I've never been good at the Square layout

So would Kathy and Petes flat be a council flat? Maybe they bought it as a right to buy ?

I never really understood why Arthur and pauline and their kids always lived with Lou ,Arthur was apparently in full time employment(although no doubt badly paid) would they not have got a council house? What was the housing situation like in London like thirty odd years ago?And they must have married some time in the late 60,s

The bedsits are number 23. There’s a handy list here showing who lives where: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_EastEnders/List_of_residences_in_EastEnders

It looks like the bedsits had a fire, then eventually became the old Slaters house (when they first arrived), then turned into the flats where Ted and the Taylors now life.

AamdC - I bet your friend’s old studio was a corridor at one point. Developers will literally squeeze flats in anywhere.

I also wonder why Pauline and family couldn’t get a council place. According to my grandma who is from the east end, it used to be pretty easy to get a place. In undesirable areas of London they couldn’t fill them.

Maybe it was more about sticking together with fammmmmmleeeee ?

OMG! I just looked at that wiki link! It's a bit mad, innit?

Cor, Hannah's lots of fun, isn't she? Actually, I remember what she was like.

Oi! Wasn't that carpet man Fred Mumford in Rentaghost? 

You're talking to yourself again, tobee.

Maternity clothes were bleedin' horrible back then. Before the widespread advent of Lycra. You had to cover it up then.