From this week's Radio Times:
"Go on, admit it. In the great Queen Vic blaze, which caused consternation and coughing across Walford, were you disappointed no one perished? Did you feel cheated that Peggy wasn't cooked like a poussin, Sam wasn't incinerated, and silent Tracey didn't at least singe her split ends?
The fire, we were promised, would be a life-changing affair - and what could be more life changing than death? It was dramatic - poor Peggy! Barbecued Billy! Spluttering Stacey! - but did it live up to the hype? Or was it an example of what former Eastenders executive producer, Diederick Santer, calls "fake high-stakes mush", meaning a soap promising (corporeal or emotional) but ultimately delivering little?
Absolutely not, says current Eastenders boss Bryan Kirkwood. "We could have had body-bags dragged out of the Vic - we did think about it and, having let some actors go, there were opportunities there - but that would have had two major negative consequences.
Firstly, Phil would be a murderer again [following the tramp who was toasted when he torched the car lot in the early 1990s] and I've no desire to see him leave the show. Second, it would have meant Peggy leaving under a cloud, in effect scarpering from a murder inquiry, and we were keen on a poignant, truthful exit for her."
Setting aside whether Peggy scarpering from a murder inquiry is any worse than her absconding from an arson investigation, Kirkwood is aware of the perils of fake high stakes, but argues that the Vic fire worked because the audience has an emotional engagement with Peggy and Phil and the pub.
Hollyoaks producer, Paul Marquess, is sceptical. "Eastenders is very good at mythologising itself, but it was just a pub on fire. Most people I spoke to were disappointed because their expectations were so high - raised by the BBC's PR machine. It almost wasn't the programme's fault."
Over to you, alan....
