The programme will air at 8pm after tonight’s episode of EastEnders, the show in which she regularly appeared from 1985 to 2006.

Her fellow EastEnders cast member, Adam Woodyatt, has said: “I am so sorry to hear the very sad news about Wendy’s death. I have many fond memories of our time together at EastEnders and will remember her with affection. Knowing that she is no longer in pain and suffering is the only comfort and I hope she rests in peace. My deepest sympathies are with John, their family and friends.”

The BBC press office has published its tribute here.

I would never have seen this coming in a million years, but The Wicker Man‘s Edward Woodward has joined the cast of EastEnders. I presume that he’ll only pay a short-lived character, but hey, what a coup for the show!

The BBC appears to be going through one of its periodic advertising campaigns for the show at the moment, with all manner of trailers on both the telly and radio. Some of these ads feature characters who are among the least interesting to have appeared in the show in its entire history. Is anybody bothered about the antics of that Rob character, whose affair with Dawn has dragged on and on? Is the Dot-steals-a-baby storyline remotely convincing? Whatever happened to all of the good characters that captured the imagination and interest of the audience? Mickey, Li, Carly and May are hardly the most engaging personalities and it doesn’t seem as if they are particularly cared about.

The new boss of EastEnders, Dierdrick Santer, was yet another executive brought in to try to revive the fortunes of the show, but on the evidence of recent weeks things just appear to be meandering along the same path it’s been going on for the past few years or so. What is needed is a couple of new major families to shake things up and put some interest back into the flagging Walford community. Phil Daniels, Jake Wood and Linda Henry are all really good actors, but their characters are not particularly sympathetic, their storylines fairly dull and they cannot carry the show on their own. 

There have been rumours of June Brown wanting to quit the show again, and from the state of the programme lately it would be quite understandable if she did. Coronation Street and Emmerdale are still light years ahead of EastEnders in terms of characterisation, plotting and humour and it is hard to see how the BBC are going to ever catch up.

As ever, while EastEnders chooses to go with shock tactics at the expense of relatable drama, allowing the viewer no respite from the idea that all family events have to be tinged with tragedy, the glitterati on Coronation Street have got it spot on. The decision to give the fluttery, angelic character of Claire Peacock a dark side through the onset of acute post-natal depression has proved inspired from all the angles with a box to tick – it is well-researched, acted from the textbook by Julia Haworth, able to educate the viewer without going for the jugular of extremities, and has been approached with an air of developed subtlety, allowing the viewer to guess or anticipate what lay ahead.

The journey from maternity ward to mental hospital has developed magnificently. The character’s initial inexhaustible ability to juggle motherhood with dinner parties and redecoration, while maintaining her public smile; through to her defensive, spiteful argument over her condition with her desperate husband while at the same time shoving the poor mite in front of a lorry, has been compelling, moving and entirely followable, even for the unitiated.

While a storyline of giving a newborn baby Down Syndrome is not dramatically heretical, even in soap, it still prompts righteous reactions of favouring downbeat and depressing storylines without any idea that something positive can emerge. And if the baby, born to Billy and Honey, is to develop as a character, then an actress with that particular condition is going to be required. Of course, EastEnders won’t go that far. You can bet your life that mother and baby, father and baby, or all three (but definitely the baby) will be written out within 12 months, allowing a storyline to peter out in the name of short-termism. There’s no doubt that the actors playing the parents will suffer in drama to high standards, but there doesn’t seem to be a way out that doesn’t involve some kind of twee or predictable escapism.

Coronation Street‘s angle on the perils of bringing children into the world has, by contrast, allowed the baby to remain safe from winning ratings and has brought a darker, colder and more sinister side to a character who was of a much sunnier and fluffier disposition up to the day she brought the mite home. Post-natal depression has been discussed on all the radio phone-ins and doleite TV blabs as a consequence, but wouldn’t have been had the plot not carried authenticity in both its research and execution. Nobody’s talked about Down Syndrome half as much.

And of course, as Claire and Ashley Peacock and their immediates dig deep into their souls for their art of shade, the viewers get the required light which has been stamped through every Coronation Street episode since day one. The hoots of laughter via Norris and Rita’s petty arguments over freebie pens have eased the viewer’s pangs of sympathy further down the cobbles. EastEnders does shade rather too thoroughly, if not necessarily well; their light always consists of someone having a do at the Vic with a piano out, and even then there’s usually a life-changing phone call for whoever happens to be singing.

The encounter was everything it should have been: Mike was sat there with his equally heavily-set, sovereign ring-sporting manager. Both had fags on the go, and were munching their way through a platter of bacon sandwiches.

Naturally, we ended up talking about Doctor Who (he’d shaved his chest to play a Thal opposite Peter Cushing, and William Hartnell had kicked up a fuss about not being involved) and Runaround.

Colin Nutley (now a director, seemingly working mostly in Sweden) had bought the game show format from the US – where it had been huge – and employed Mike as the host having been at Pye Records when the comedian/actor was recording his 1975 chart hit, Ugly Duckling.

“I fell off the charts, straight into Runaround,” remembered Mike, “which was a massive hit. Massive hit. It was wipeout time. We had 74% – 74%! – of the viewing public.”

“I thoroughly enjoyed it,” he continued. “The construction of the show was five kids from one school, five kids from another. Half the audience was one school, and the other half the other. So, when the kids knew the answers, they used to shout out, ‘Wahheeey! It’s number one!’ or ‘A, B or C’ or whatever.

“I had to keep them quiet, otherwise we wouldn’t have a show. I was not nice to the kids, but that was just part of me being ‘Mike Reid the comedian’, because when I was growing up, as a compere I had to shut-up everyone in the audience before we could put the show on. So I became aggressive, which even nowadays I still am on stage. It made me an individual, away from the comics who are just static, with their arm leaning on the mic stand.

“I had a great deal of respect for those kids, though. And, of course, if I’m in London, about every two weeks at least, I’ll get someone coming up to me saying, ‘I was on Runaround with you’.

“It was the forerunner of kids’ programmes nowadays. The forerunner. The first to have coloured balls, lights, big prizes.”

As for the rumour, reported to TV Cream, that once the cameras stopped rolling, the best prizes were taken back from the contestants, Mike declared: “Bullshit. Total and utter bullshit.”

“You’re getting mixed up with Crackerjack!” chipped in Mr Manager.

Ahead of his collision with a china dog, we were treated to a few fleeting glimpses of the erstwhile Den Watts – the proper one, from back before his collision with a BBC sound effect of someone falling into a puddle. Watching him strut about behind the Queen Vic bar during this birthday edition of EastEnders, silencing quarrelsome punters with a barbed remark or withering grin, was to be reminded of those vaguely halcyon days when he was everything you hoped he’d turn out to be again – a likeable rogue, a hateful hero, a wise-talking harlequin.

But they were only flashes of the man’s former greatness, just like his return proved to be a cruelly ephemeral burst of excitement amidst the steadily decaying detritus of Albert Square. Moments before his butchering from the antique mongrel, the knife was twisted even more thanks to a clumsy but distractedly moving exchange between Den and Pauline about their respective clans. It’s about the only thing EastEnders does well nowadays: über-brief exchanges of nostalgia between Walford’s most outspoken veterans, who entertain the notion that things might not have been all that bad in the old days before turning on their heels and heading back out into the real world of gangsters, hoodlums, dimly-lit dives and ultra-clean cafes.

Just as when Channel 4 pointedly refused to enter into any celebrations on the occasion of its 20th anniversary for fear of calling even more attention upon its then-faltering condition, so EastEnders notched up two decades with barely a concession to the party spirit. Viewers were treated to the tawdry-looking opening night of the latest in the Square’s endless procession of seedy clubs and ugly drinking establishments. The Queen Vic was barely a third full. Outside in the street there was almost a punch-up (“C’mon! Give it your best shot!”) and somebody threw a bin bag at a passing car. Finally there was not one but two deaths, both as preposterous as each other, the china dog vying with tumbling off-screen onto a dual carriageway as candidates for the most undignified, unsatisfactory exits from a soap since Derek Wilton met his fate at the hands of a giant paper clip.

In one sense, at least it all meant we were spared the sort of escapades OTT endured on the show’s 15th birthday, and again when it added a fourth episode in 2001. The bunker mentality that seems to have gripped the production team also torpedoed plans for the Nation’s Favourite EastEnder, in the process sidestepping the usual scenario of seeing such an accolade bestowed on someone who only joined the soap three years ago.

Proper anniversaries manage to make a point of celebrating both the past and the present. Newsnight did it on its own 20th, and again just last month with a special week of 25th birthday commemorations. But maybe it was hoping too much for EastEnders to even try and do itself justice, especially at a time when the walking embodiment of its past (Den) had ended up just as much an embarrassment as the backstage shenanigans of its present. Ratings dipping to the lowest they’ve ever been and the show’s boss getting sacked after just three months in the job (following her predecessor suffering a similar fate) do not suggest themselves as the foundation for any sort of credible publicity drive.

Instead we got a double-length episode which, for about 90 per cent of the time, chugged along doing little of consequence, constantly switching between the same sets of people conducting the same conversation in a pageant of disreputable locations. The dénouement came almost from nowhere. There’d been no slow, careful injections of tension, no sustained rising of anticipation – no real sense of unfolding action at all. Suddenly Den found himself facing a trio of wronged women. A fourth was then wheeled out of the shadows for a three-minute cameo. This was Sharon, whose surprise re-appearance, clunking confessions aside – “You know, I feel contaminated by you” – did generate a momentary frisson of melodrama. Proceedings promptly reverted back to burlesque, though, when Den began howling like a hippopotamus and shoved his wife’s head into a fruit machine.

As a desperate frantic effort to get rid of Leslie Grantham in as crude and sensational a way possible, it was ironic the episode comprised 45 rambling minutes of nothing before a quarter of an hour of snarling and spontaneous violence. Nobody was handed any plausible rationale for behaving the way they did during the finale, and the device dreamed up to unite the previously warring females – getting Den to sign a piece of paper – was half-arsed in the extreme. As the man himself noted, it was hardly the stuff of what he’d been assured would be “the worst night of my life”. When characters themselves pick plot holes apart on screen, things are close to meltdown.

There’s precious hope on the horizon when many of the popular stereotypes about a TV show are writ large right across the screen. Tune in to any episode of EastEnders and people do moan and bicker every other minute. People do shout at each other instead of talking. Even the way the show looks has gone wrong: the café too sterile, the market too cluttered, the front rooms decidedly un-lived in, the wine bars and watering holes too dank and unpleasant. When the Dagmar was set up to represent the epitome of everything the Queen Vic was not, at least it always looked the kind of place you could conceivably enjoy going to for a drink. At the moment there’s nowhere in Albert Square you’d feel at home. No one seems to live or work in any surroundings that have had care and attention bestowed upon them. The café remains the least enticing location for a cup of tea on television.

Above all, the show’s now completely lost its ear for dialogue. Characters in Coronation Street and Emmerdale may lapse into cliché or caricature, but you can always recognise it for such and it’s mostly carried off with charm and aplomb. In EastEnders people sound like nobody on earth. “You’re my brother? I thought you was a two-faced ponce!”, “Leave tonight as a myth, instead of what you really are, an empty husk of a man”, “You’ve just lost the last person to look you in the eye and tell you what’s what!”, “It’s better to die standing up than live kneeling down!” Nobody talks like this anywhere in the world. No wonder the programme gets endlessly accused of spinning off into fantasy and the realms of disbelief. Never mind the boring plethora of criminals, thugs and corrupt suit-wearing con merchants; even the everyday people who drink pints and work on the market don’t walk and talk like human beings anymore.

The one resounding image of the 20th birthday episode was that of characters wandering about for no reason. Somebody would cross the Square, somebody else would mooch down an alley, then the same person would cross back over the Square while a third sauntered by a billboard. It was repetitious and boring. It also smacked of waiting for the final curtain. Nobody wanders about in Coronation Street or Emmerdale or even Family Affairs. There’s no time, and there’s no point. A soap that comes to rely on its cast meandering listlessly around a bunch of shoddy sets cannot help but end up terminally listless itself.

Be grateful we won’t ever have to sit through an EastEnders 25th birthday episode. At this rate it might not even turn 21.

Yet, malleable though my malcontent is, tonight hinted at a golden future in the medium term. For too long certain actors have been given depressingly one-dimensional characters to play, with little or no room for latitude. Signs of a thaw though are beginning to appear and the green shoots of hope assail the eyes now and again; whether it is traces of Ian Beale possessing a soul or Sam Mitchell being given the opportunity to sink her pearly whites into some serious scenes, it surely beholds a brighter future down Walford way now that some of the characters are being fleshed out. Not only that, but there’s actually some development of character that is integral to the plot. Tonight we saw a pivotal scene as Phil passed the family baton to his sister. For far, far too long the character of Sam has been nothing more than faintly ludicrous. Forcing the character into the role of moll may, perhaps, be the saving of her. Ignore the overly symbolic matriarchal stereotyping, what we have here is the chance to watch an actor sink or swim with the script that they are given. And for Kim Medcalf, it is indeed a moment of truth.

Coupled with the promised return of the spurned Andy, at last we have the regular promise of a genuine malevolent presence on the screen. Michael Higgs’ turn as Andy proved that there is room for a dark, gothic character within the cast. Both the Watts of the parish carry no threat at all and Young Den’s continual wild-eyed stare into the middle distance has moved inexorably from annoying habit to national joke. A cheeky smile and a sub Dick and Dom haircut do not a gangster make. Similarly, the seamless transition of Old Den from horny but loveable wide-boy to major player has been as baffling as it has implausible. Positioning the two as a mini-firm has proven to be a bit of a disaster. The plotline that carried us to this point has been utterly risible. And a not so subtle combination of bad acting and bad dialogue has ensured that, for Steve McFadden at least, a short stint in the pokey means less screen time with the two lightweight Watts’ boys.

The pre-occupation with gangsters has been another failure of EastEnders. The eagerness to play upon this aspect of the East End is understandable but it defies belief that it has been so badly handled throughout the history of the show. There have been many outrageous examples of desperately bad characterisation over the years. Christ, we’ve even had the bizarre sight of Wullie Melvin as a gangster. What the hell was he going to do – camp them to death? Hywel Bennet’s turn as a weeble was also instantly forgettable. Ross Kemp always seemed camply aloof and Martin Kemp played, well, Martin Kemp. The pervasive image of bad boys will always be a staple of soaps but, in recent times, only the character of Corrie‘s Jez Quigley can be said to have been truly evil. Thankfully, as I’ve intimated previously, Michael Higgs as Andy could be the saviour of the East End bad boys. Following in a long line of fulsome failures, Higgs has an air of real menace about him and, unlike his predecessors, a genuine aura of evil malevolence. I really hope that the writers intend to bed him in for the long run. Giving him rein to take over the Square and wreak his revenge would be a master stroke. It would also, I believe, give the show greater scope for developing the Alfie/Kat story further.

The success of Shane Ritchie has been a genuine surprise. About a year and a half ago, I reviewed a miserable programme that recalled the highlights of television for the year 2001. In it I wrote, “I really don’t need to see a clip of Shane Ritchie behaving like a tosser. I know he’s a tosser.” Well, forget the slicer, give me the whole humble pie. The man’s performance has been of a consistent level of nothing more than brilliance. I scoffed at his introduction to the show but, for me and a fair few other critics, Ritchie has rightly earned the copious praise that he has been showered with. Despite the awful, early scripts, his character has injected life into the show just as it was reaching a level of stultifying averageness. In their determination to pair Alfie off with Kat, I’ve previously accused the writers of short-termism. Genuinely, I believe that the show would have worked so much better with Kat having married Andy and developing into the moll that Sam will become. This would have left Ritchie to further deploy his not inconsiderable charm to the masses. But, with the return of Andy, we have some fantastic possibilities for character and plot development.

Tonight we witnessed the demise of Phil. Strangely under-written, the scenes allowed Steve McFadden little artistic manoeuvre other than a menacing phone-call to Watts Senior. The dialogue placed in his mouth was strangely creaky and out of kilter with the actuality of the situation. It has long been a bone of contention at OTT Towers that soaps are inherently badly written for men. Fellow contributor Chris Diamond and I rail long into the night (and our pints) at the inadequacy of writers with regards to dialogue in these scenarios. Sadly, this evening proved no exception – another aspect of getting it wrong with regards to gangsters, I’m afraid. This is a pity as McFadden has hidden depths as an actor that are rarely challenged on the show. Despite his heavyweight storylines and intrinsic value to the plot, he is rarely rewarded with decent material in relation to his billing. However, despite the weak script afforded him, he still manages to out-muscle his would-be pretenders to the bad boy of the manor throne by some considerable distance. Really, these Watts boys are paperweights who are adding little or no value to the show currently.

Another performance that deserves mention is that of Ricky Grove’s portrayal of the hapless Garry. With a quite wonderful sense of comedic timing, Groves has turned in a level of consistent excellence matching that of Ritchie. The recent bed-hopping antics and the upcoming STD dénouement have been brilliantly written and Groves has stolen the show of late. One can only hope that something along the lines of “Remember; an STD is for life and not just for Christmas” pops up in the script. Aye, if you can’t laugh at the clap then what can you laugh at? Regardless of the subject matter, Groves has conveyed considerable guile and charm as the new-found love god who can’t quite believe his luck. Like Perry Fenwick’s Billy, the character of Gary has been sparingly used, perhaps even underused. It seems that their characterisation is always founded in the immediacy of the imminent future rather than the longer term. Which is a pity, as both are wonderful actors with an impressive range to offer, which in the case of Groves, we are finally being allowed to see.

Whilst the future is looking considerably brighter, we’ve had many false dawns in the past and the viewer knows better than to be carried away on a tide of hopeful exuberance. The return of Andy holds bounteous promise as does the possibility of McFadden phoning in his performance from the nick on a regular basis. EastEnders has always excelled at psychological drama and the re-positioning of these two characters allows the writers to further explore that particular territory. For once, instead of self-indulgent navel gazing we can be confident of some long, deep and dark soul-searching invading our homes. Forget the pantomime performance of Brian Capron as Richard Hillman (undoubted brilliance though it was), here the writers have a genuine opportunity to deliver something special. God knows we deserve it.

Despite the false dawn of this week’s National Television Awards, there can be no doubt that the recent episodes of EastEnders rank amongst, arguably, the worst in its entire history. I expect the slings and arrows of outraged Walfordites to be winging my way by this paragraph alone. Tough titty. It’s true. But if you are going to threaten me, at least have the decency to spell check first.

The reintroduction of Leslie Grantham has thrown up more questions than answers. I’m sure that his initial spoken words – “Hello Princess” – will feature in countless pub quizzes the land over for years to come but there can be no denying the magnitude of the gamble in bringing him back. Alongside Anita Dobson, the pairing of Den and Angie and the rollercoaster ride that they gave the viewing public is cited as a golden age for EastEnders. But surely things have only got better since their demise? Or was it, indeed, a halcyon time that today’s cast can only hope but aspire too? Well, judge for yourself. The past may be another country but UK Gold can sort you out with a visa. Debatably, Grantham may have been the glue that held the Square together in those days and Dobson no more than an unconvincing, unattractive ham, but the reality is that with the return of Den we are allowed to compare like with like and contrast the past with the present.

Grantham’s re-introduction will take time to gel despite the familiarity of his thrawn, haggard face and, more importantly, the continuing inability of the writers to expedite this process satisfactorily. Like the character of Alfie Moon before him, Den will have to live through the badly judged, poorly written lifecycle of ragged reintroduction before the storyline slips neatly and convincingly around him. The current supposed spark twixt him and Sam Mitchell (conveniently, another unconvincing ham) lacks any frisson whatsoever. However, in Grantham’s defence I would concede that this due to the overwhelming lack of charisma on Sam’s part – actor and character.

This is just one of many current on-going screen relationships that similarly suffer from a complete lack of sexual tension. Two quick, pertinent examples; In the case of Janine and Paul, this centres on the inescapable fact that Janine being considered remotely sexy is laughable. With the corpulently wooden duo of Zoë and the soporific DJ, there is a singular lack of interest due to their dreadful performances. This is a strand of the show that highlights both the lack of ability on the writer’s part to convincingly portray sexual dynamism on-screen and a similar lack of ability inherent within the cast to take what they’ve been given – however poor it is – and make it work.

Another aspect of Den’s return has been the chance to observe, and consider, the functionality of the Watt’s brood. This, manifestly, leads us to the conclusion that the character of Vicky has been a huge (though entertainingly glorious) mistake. Leaving aside her wonderfully awful accent, the plain fact is that regardless of how bad an actress the girl is, the character just hasn’t worked. Likewise, the performance of the lad who plays Dennis Junior deserves scrutiny – if only to try and work out just what’s caught his attention whenever he does his baleful, thousand-yard-stare into the middle distance (ie almost every scene). However, unlike Vicky, his character has legs and I’m prepared to allow him time to develop. And develop he must. The cardboard mean, moody hard man image just doesn’t wash. He has no air of menace about him whatsoever and playing Dennis as such is a mistake that must be arrested immediately. Strangely though, the character of Sharon (always, for me, one of the weakest and most irritating) seems to be more workable in the presence of her father. Go figure.

The current compulsion with cartoon gangsters seems to have reached its acme with the introduction of Mr Kat Slater. Reprising his Eddie Santini role from The Bill with wonderful relish, here we have a character that does genuinely seem to have an omnipotent air of malevolence. If only the scriptwriters had the foresight to ensure the long-term embedding of the future Mr Kat, then a world of future possibilities would wonderfully open up. The idea of Jessie Wallace performing a Widows style character in the Square has enormous potential. Well, if you’re going to obsess with the East End Gangster myth, then do it properly and for the long term. Progressing with the Alfie/Kat romance may satisfy the Walford obsessives and keep the romantics happy but it hardly reflects the reality of everyday life. Never mind it would do no justice to either actor involved.

However, short-termism is at the root of practically all the flaws within the show – the Alfie/Kat plotline being no more than the most obvious example. Too many storylines seem to simply run out of steam when, with a little planning and judicious chance taking they could extend into genuine, gripping storylines in their own right. But these fruitful possibilities are ruthlessly extinguished and, all too often, future storylines are clearly signposted. Not for our benefit in the sense of watching the actual show, but to alert us to a batch of fresh faces in the forthcoming editions of TV Chat et al.

Another flaw that is beginning to eat away at EastEnders is the generally dreadful standard of acting by the younger members of the cast. Compared to, say, Hollyoaks‘ Premier League standard, EastEnders is – one or two cases apart – strictly Vauxhall Conference. You know a soap is in trouble when they hive off a group of young people to somewhere for the weekend. I dread the forthcoming adventures of the Walford Cubs in dear, old Scotland. Will they hit the nadir of stereotyping as they did in the Fowler’s Irish escapade? One can but hope. Anything to take your eyes away and mind from the performances of those characters involved would be a godsend. Such a mass wooden movement hasn’t been witnessed in Scotland since High Birnam Wood came to Dunsinane Hill I wager. Still that’s for future consumption.

Tonight’s consumption consisted mainly of Lucy Benjamin getting through alcohol on a scale that would endear her to George Best. With her cunning plan falling apart, her character’s descent into the bottle has become tediously self-pitying. Played with just the right amount of devil-may-care panache, the portrayal of Lucy is a prime example of an actor taking a rather thin, suddenly one-dimensional character and a pig’s ear of a script and making a silk purse from it all. Once again, short-termism rearing its ugly insidious head.

Phew! All that and I managed to studiously not comment on the Diwali celebrations and execrable neighbour-from-hell storyline. Insert your own thoughts here, dear reader – I’m sure you all have some bile to spew. For once the constant assertion that “everyone’s talking about it” rings true. Pity they’re all saying just how shit it is.

Characters depart explosively, situations reach apocalyptic meltdown and events occur daily of such outrageous and outlandish contrivance yet, perpetually, a new day dawns and the world begins afresh. And, like the 24-hour amnesiac, the metaphorical slate is wiped clean and history is relegated to the hazy hinterlands of a scriptwriter’s memory, only to be rehashed and morphed as required, with barely even a passing glance to continuity or the viewers’ sensibilities. Considering the critical panning that Being April received for its contrivances and “ticking off” of the ethnic boxes, it seems almost bewildering that EastEnders gets away without much in the way of critical comment.

Let’s make no bones about it; EastEnders bears utterly no resemblance to the East End of London. It’s as authentic a representation of London as Taggart is of Glasgow. The ethnicity comment bears looking at. When Billy Joel crooned about his Uptown Girl living in a white bread world, you could be forgiven for thinking that his lemon curd was, perhaps, Letitia Dean and Albert Square was the epicentre of his homogenous but Piano Man rocking world, such was – and is – its overwhelming whiteness. Tokenism occasionally rules in this mythical East End, but serious questions must be asked. Where are all the Nigerians, Turks and East Europeans? Where are the Jews, the Ghanaians and the Bangladeshis? And, most importantly of all, where the hell are the East End accents? Do the cast attend the Dick Van Dyke School of “Cor Blimey, Mary Poppins!” Cockney Accents? Or is there somewhere twixt Bethnal Green and Whitechapel where the inhabitants actually speak in this peculiar, strangulated manner?

I had always taken my fiancée’s protestations (she being a genuine cockney) regarding EastEnders on board with a superficial smile and a hidden snigger. After all, being Glaswegian myself, I’ve been subjected to some utterly cringe-worthy attempts at the Glaswegian patois and odious representations of the working class way of life over the years, so what was the problem with yet another duff attempt at gritty, unsentimental realism? Well, clearly, as the Better Half pointed out, there’s getting it wrong and getting it totally and utterly wrong. And, I have to add, now that I am living in the East End itself, it is patently obvious that the majority of the good burghers of the parishes in question themselves, also consider it to be a particularly shoddy effort.

But the tales from the environs of Albert Square are not entirely without merit. There are characters genuinely rooted in the East End, actors of considerable skill and aplomb and storylines that are authentic, watchable and readily identifiable. However, rarely are any two of these factors on screen simultaneously and never, ever all three concurrently. In truth, there are perhaps a frostbitten handful of actors that are worth watching. Some, however, are so far distanced from reality as to be no more than cardboard, cartoon characters, ciphers for a mordant pastiche of what passes for life back here in Beanoland.

Another failure is the inherent ability to frame EastEnders with some suitable points of cultural reference. When soaps do so, it tends to be extremely heavy-handed and, indubitably, patronisingly obvious. Yet, when properly achieved it is a joy to behold. Take Coronation Street around a month ago. In one beguiling scene, we had an on-air reference to the Chuckle Brothers complete with catchphrase and camera actions. This went beyond joke and ventured charmingly into the territory of homage. It was executed with simplistic reverence and was measured to perfection. That said, the Chuckle Brothers have always been cruelly under-rated by the chattering classes anyway, and it’s about time someone tipped a cap their way.

Caught in a quagmire of its own self-deluding seriousness, the action down Albert Square of late has been tedious to the point of switch-off boring. The storylines (sic) plod along with almost frightening predictability and the cast struggle to imbue them with any emotion or zest. There has, however, been some wonderful unconscious comedy. The scenes featuring the presciently monikered “Little Mo” post-prison release have been utterly hilarious. In particular her mad eyed, head lolling, “I’ve-been-changed-by-stir” routine had my local rolling in the aisles. But if that was bad enough, then the lead-up to the recent pre-coital snog between Dr Trueman and Kat Slater was undoubtedly a classic of its genre. As these two behemoths of bad acting lumbered like arthritic dinosaurs across the screen, the dialogue was butchered mercilessly as the phrase “sexual chemistry” was made totally and utterly redundant. This was a veritable masterclass in how not to act, a living example for the next generation of Soap Star wannabes that you truly need not have an ounce of ability to become a soap star.

For a show that likes to revel in its hagiographic self-publicity and bask in the afterglow of its stars’ supposed sexual dynamics, the cast of EastEnders are curiously androgynous. With the departure of Martin Kemp and his sunken dome, there is not one member of the cast that generates anything approaching sexual magnetism. Nevertheless it would appear that to criticise the show’s sexually led storylines is to invite charges of prudishness and to stand accused of not living in the real world. Whilst not being completely averse to the odd piece of rumpy-pumpy on television myself I must confess to watching in anodyne disbelief at some – make that most, if not all – of the recent attempts at coupling. In particular, the whole storyline with Jamie Mitchell and the older woman may have tried to emulate Benjamin and Mrs Robinson but, in reality, it reeked of laughable desperation. The only thing these two have in common with Anne Bancroft and Dustin Hoffman is that their surnames contain vowels and consonants.

And let’s not even go down the road of discussing the criminal characterisation of Ian Beale and his “relationship” with Janine. Actually, can we discuss the ebullient manner in which Janine’s descent into crack-whore hell (and subsequent, almost immediate, redemption) was – ahem – stunningly and so accurately portrayed? No, didn’t think so. This was, arguably, the irrefutable nadir of EastEnders in recent times. Only the runaway-whore hell of Zoë, the “I’m an alky just like my mum” hell of Sharon, the “which lump of wood do I choose?” hell of Lisa and the shagging-Robbie hell of Nita come close to matching this. Factor in Charlie Slater’s heart attack, the lady in red episode with Dr Trueman and the android-like, adenoidal Zoë and the eldest Beale spawns’ ridiculous efforts at playing the child from hell and you have some idea of the competition that crack-whore hell is up against.

Yet amidst this assault on the acting profession, there are shafts of opaque sunlight to pierce even the murkiest corners of the Square. Jim and Dot, Billy, Patrick, Gus and Sonia take up the slack and carry the rest of this under-worked, overpaid, collectively uninspiring cast on their over-burdened shoulders. Whereas the axeman cometh with increasing regularity down Weatherfield way, it’s long overdue that he made a rampaging visit to Walford to cut away the dead wood and, not so much clear, but denude the forest.

Vitriolic, bitter, vituperative histrionics aside, I do recognise the fact that the cast and crew put in considerable effort to the show. But, like any profession, there are those on either side of the camera who are clearly not up to the job. I mean, is it the scriptwriter’s fault that Trevor can only do ominous malevolence or should they write him accordingly? Is it the cast’s fault that they look like forlorn dummies incapable of acting every time the director uses the overhead crane? And, laughably, a midget landlady who has all the gravitas of an out of date jar of jellied eels as the feisty fulcrum of the show’s focal point? I don’t think so. It seems that the obstacles in the path of the development of EastEndersare to be praised not buried.

It is telling that, directorially speaking, the show resorts to cod techniques stylistically to emphasise gravity or underline the magnitude of a situation. The portentous overhead shots of Patrick and Anthony in the cemetery destroyed any emotion in the scene. Clearly emasculated by their presence, both actors struggled to credibly deliver their lines and always seemed to be acting with an unnatural stiltedness, as well as one eye to the crane itself. Not quite the Dogma School but undeniably dogmatic nonetheless. Another pet favourite is to have a character wistfully wandering around the Square – preferably in the dead of night and ideally in the rain – with the sound of revelry washing over them as they agonize over a life altering decision. Hell, throw in some fireworks and an overhead shot and you have the quintessential EastEnders sequence. Whilst I am not advocating that these fingerprints of the auteur should be removed, I do definitely think that less is indeed more. However, the stark reality of the prevailing attitude is one’s too many and a million’s not enough.

So, with all baggage in mind, where do we – as Haircut 100 so beatifically sang – go from here? For me it’s time to say adieu to the hapless individuals who play Lisa (one dimensional), Little Mo (too earnest and obviously acting), Zoë (can’t act won’t act), Charlie (has one dimension less than Lisa), Tom and Sharon (sexually hermaphroditic and both make Charlie look oh-so multi-dimensional), Martin (the acid trip episode exposed him for the incompetent entity that he is), Pauline (a screaming harridan so awful that even the token gay man finds her difficult to be around), Peggy (a joke figure in my local and the one character so indefatigably removed from real life) and Sam (where does one even begin?) And that’s just for starters.

The plot driven obsession must be ditched and ditched pronto. Let’s take some time out and watch the characters go about their humdrum lives, as opposed to the manic, amphetamine fuelled existences they currently inhabit. The best scenes of late have been the simplest – Gus courting Sonia, Jim dealing with his dead budgie and Dot’s reaction to her freshly redecorated sitting room for example. Let’s have more of them. This is an area that Coronation Street has historically triumphed in over the years, but the writers on EastEnders have proved that they can match like for like. They should have the courage of their convictions and shift the balance of the show to incorporate more of them. The dynamics of a relationship are always best expressed in the nuts and bolts of everyday existence as opposed to the fireworks of passion, extremities and obsession. We understand, and develop empathy, with characters when we see their foibles and weaknesses exposed in everyday situations. That’s why the characters of Jim and Dot work. That’s why Sonia and Gus work. It’s honest, austere, straightforward and a pleasure to watch. Sometimes, simple things executed simply can be the most delightful to view.

Alongside this, let’s leave the cartoon characters for the pantomime season. Tom the Oirish Romeo. Trevor the Evil Sweaty. (Can you see a theme developing here? Christ on a bike, all we need is Huw The Taff to reappear and we’ll have a full set). By all means have a Casanova or a wicked presence. But, in the case of Tom, ensure that the character is, in itself, credible and that there is a modicum of on-screen sexual chemistry with his amour. With Trevor, well, great screen presence though the mono-browed Alex Ferns brings, he has been dealt a poor hand and, subsequently, appears to be a one trick pony. Whereas Tom may have left his bullying behind him, it does appear a tad remiss that the Little Englander mentality to the Scots and Irish still shines through. This has been a consistent fault of the show though. The Scottish characters have been entirely disingenuous and utterly unappealing as have their Irish counterparts. Who could forget Aidan or the Fowlers’ relatives from the stereotypical farm? Including, naturally, a tousled haired lothario.

The raison d’être of soaps is that they are rooted in reality. Yet, the fact is that they are a world away from the truth of everyday existence. Walford continues to exist in a timeless cocoon of indifference, cosseted by layers of ambiguity and pretence. There are no loan sharks here. Neither are there order books or single mothers coping with attention deficit hyperactive children and absent fathers, no CSA, no pawning of wedding rings. Hell, when was the last time you heard talk of a crisis loan? This a sphere of existence into which the dark shadow of credit card debt rarely looms. A world in which manicured nails and brilliant white teeth are the order of the day, where even the ugly people are not particularly ugly (Robbie is, of course, the exception that proves the rule). This is a place where best friends depart and are immediately forgotten, a place where history is rewritten in the style of Pol Pot. A location where hopes are raised and dreams are crushed within the space of 30 minutes. Furthermore, this is the place where the concepts of family, of being sorted and of having one’s head done in have become a permanently chanted mantra.

Other, more fundamental and pressing questions also beg to be answered. Why have the Howard League for Penal Reform never investigated the preposterously high conviction rate for the populace of Walford? Surely the concept of Charlie Slater having done The Knowledge has to be the biggest oxymoron in the history of television? How does Laura keep a family on the weekly proceeds of the sale of a half dozen cod and chips? Do the Homo-Police stand guard at Walford tube station and refuse to let any gays’ in? (Must be. After all, clearly the Black & Asian Police are doing their job). Who supplies the “roofies” that Robbie slips Nita on a daily basis to keep her under his spell? Dr Legg – is he a conduit to the spirit world? Where did the legendary bum-fluff from Ian Beale’s upper lip slink off to? What happened to the concept of do your laundry in your own home? When will someone realise that there’s more to life beyond Walford than Manchester? (Well, I’ll grant you that the Di Marcos’ hotfooted it to Leicester.) All of this and we’ve not even dared to enter the province of where the heck Mark Fowler gets his fruit and veg from.

Crap asides aside, I do have genuine affection for the show. However, it is currently floating along the river of television on cruise control, and shows no sign of coming into dry-dock for a much-needed major refit. EastEnders is no more than mediocre presently. Which is a pity as it has the elements contained within its cast and crew to raise its standards and become so much better and more entertaining than it currently is.

As they say down my local in Bethnal Green, it needs a right good kick up the ‘arris.

There was so much wrong with this show. A dreadful mawkish arrangement of the familiar EastEnders theme tune introduced proceedings – an unnecessarily sickly re-branding of the functional original version. Shots of cast members tottering into Television Centre were more akin to the lead-up to an awards ceremony, though the arrival of Anna Wing (Lou Beale) suggested the prospect of some input from some of the soap’s veteran, most influential personnel. Predictably, we didn’t see another glimpse of her all evening.

What was Jonathan Ross doing hosting this shambles? He co-wrote the script, which apparently had to be edited for some “rude” jokes, but a line about “late night spooning action” and other drab innuendos made the final cut. He added nothing to proceedings. Any mildly experienced host could’ve handled the task of continually picking up the conversations from where they’d been dropped onto the floor by the various actors and actresses interviewed. A couple of times he came out with an improvised gag that lifted the show a million feet into the air. The rest of the while he was mentally counting down the minutes and counting out his salary. He was also dressed as if for a funeral, somewhat appropriately.

The introductory clips package set the mood for the evening. Loads of stuff was taken out of context, and all the famous bits from the early years were rushed through – including, feeling somewhat out of place, a scene from Kathy’s rape by James Wilmott-Brown – to make way for more recent incidents. Then the show fell into an inevitably unimaginative format. A big name star came on, chatted to Jonathan for a few minutes, and then a trio of appropriate “supporting” cast joined the sofa for more reminiscences. Jonathan then cued in another clips package, and the process began again – and again, repeated to fill out the hour. This was tedious and uninspired. It made for no variance of tone, created a terrible air of monotony (Jonathan trotting out the same questions and ending up using the same line to thank each “group” of stars every single time) and gave viewers various exit points at which to conveniently switch over, or more likely switch off.

There were no former cast members interviewed whatsoever. Everyone Jonathan talked to was still in the show – because of course to do otherwise would be to betray the fact the programme’s not a patch on what it once was. Wendy Richard was, predictably, the first guest, but Jonathan restricted her to talking about present storylines and more general aspects of her character, including – inevitably – cardigans (“I haven’t worn one for over 10 years” she snapped, unpleasantly). She set the template for the guests that followed her – all resolutely on-message – “Oh yes, I’m very proud to be involved …” – and frighteningly willing to answer questions in character. Why does this have to happen? If we wanted to know about character and plot development, it surely would’ve been better to have the scriptwriters and story liners on the sofa rather than the mostly ill-informed, inarticulate stars.

Jonathan was often no better, constantly asking guests about their respective character’s motivations. He seemed taken with the occasion – “It’s like another world,” he sighed at one point, but none of the guests were given any time to expand in detail on life on or off camera. It was no help that three of the long-term characters deemed suitable for interview were awful ones: Pauline, Ian, Pat, a trio of the dullest, most lifeless creations to have ever peopled Albert Square. Most frustrating of all was how the clips packages were leavened with very brief glimpses of other, far more interesting characters – a montage from Ian’s life included a shot of Paul and Trevor throwing confetti over a pissed-off looking Cindy. But there wasn’t time to begin to wonder how long ago those two left the programme, or what the actors might be doing now. As for Michelle Collins, she committed the worse crime, recording a video message to Adam Woodyatt – as Cindy! In character!

Woodyatt lived up to his on-screen persona – confessing to keeping props from the show as “they’ll be my pension”. Just as it was cardigans with Pauline, so it was ear-rings with Pat – “Do you having aching lobes when you finish work?” cracked Jonathan, to which Pat professionally replied, “The costume department are wonderful.” It wasn’t until well over halfway through that the soap’s writers were even mentioned, but no specific names or key personnel were singled out and there were no trademark cutaways to the audience to show the faces behind the names.

It came as a shock, during Barbara Windsor’s section, to find her paying tribute to Susan Tully, but only as a director (her 10 years as one of the leading roles on the series conveniently forgotten about). Barbara’s account of her breast cancer storyline was notable for not being in the same bawdy knockabout vein as everything that went before – though she somewhat ruined the mood with borderline tasteless comments about the production team: “It’s a piece of cake – they hand it to you,” before she too lapsed back into character.

The programme ended after an extended section paying tribute to Letitia Dean, with room for some I Love the Eighties-style subjective laughing at her early fashions. It was amusing seeing Jonathan and guests moving rather awkwardly over the subject of Martin Kemp’s impending departure to ITV, but Martin himself was all over Letitia on the sofa, which was just not what we wanted to see. On Kemp’s enduring image of life on the road in Spandau Ballet – “watching EastEnders on video, eating a Chinese …” – Jonathan brought it all to a close. There was just time for a dreadful This Is Your Life style gathering on the stage, but only of those “important” enough to have been interviewed, and again, those still in the show today.

The credits gave it away – the same team who made this also make Parkinson. This was a shocking excuse of a tribute, not in the least bit entertaining or exciting, a tawdry effort at trying to pull in viewers for the actual episode that was to follow afterwards. As a piece of television it was, simply, crap: extremely poorly scripted, with some clumsy editing and overall botched production.

Sure, it meant Top of the Pops got pushed back to the night before, Thursday, at 7pm, where it clearly belongs – but at what a price.