EastEnders 40th Anniversary

It's a huge week for EastEnders as the show marks its 40th birthday beginning on Monday 17th February. Episodes drop on BBC iPlayer on Monday at 7.30pm with a special hour-long episode on the actual anniversary (Wednesday 19th February), followed by a live episode on Thursday 20th February with the outcome of Denise's storyline decided by you, the audience!

As part of the celebrations we spoke to five writers, past and present, from across the 40-year history of the show and asked each of them to choose a memorable episode that they had written themself. We've also been in touch with the EastEnders archivist who has had a dig in the archive and provided the scripts for the selected episodes. You can read these alongside lots of other scripts from the show, over in our online Script Library.

Find out which episodes they have chosen below, which include farewells to some iconic Albert Square characters ...

Rob Gittins - 1988

"I was first commissioned to write for EastEnders at the end of 1985. Forty years and a good few hundred episodes later, I’m still there. It’s been forty extraordinary years for the show – and for me.

The first time I walked round the iconic lot, my guide was the equally iconic producer, Julia Smith, and series script editor, Tony Holland. Their biggest point was one of geography. This show, they told me, isn’t set on a road or a street, it’s set on a square and that’s deliberate - because on a square you can see everyone, and everyone can see you. It all contributed to the pressure-cooker feel of the show in those early years. Sometimes, that’s a force for good – engendering a Blitz spirit where everyone can help each other in a crisis. Sometimes, it can work the opposite way. There’s no escape.

No escape also summed up how I felt in those first couple of years. Back then, the writer had to attend everything connected with the production of your episodes - the producer’s run, the filming in the studio and the filming on the lot. I didn’t really get it at the start. The writer, by and large, wasn’t consulted and was more of a spectator than anything else. I tentatively voiced these concerns to my first script editor who fixed me with a steely gaze and assured me that both Julia and Tony would totally fail to understand any writer who didn’t want to see every word of their script being filmed. I still didn’t quite get it.

This episode (348 at the time, broadcast 16th June 1988)* changed all that. It was late at night, and I was in a viewing room with Julia, Tony and Corinne Hollingworth. We were watching the final scene with two amazing actresses, Matilda Ziegler and Gillian Taylforth. It was a big, dramatic and very long scene – certainly for EastEnders at that time. Watching the way they built the scene between them, how the director subtly guided them, seeing the way they created the small details, the peaks and troughs, I accessed an insight into the show I’d never have had simply watching the finished episode as it went out. This episode – and that night in Elstree - was a learning curve for me in more ways than one."

Simon Ashdown - 2000

"One of the real pleasures of writing for EastEnders is that you sometimes get to depict a key moment in the life of a character that has been on screen for years, followed by millions, loved by millions, you and the audience sharing their journey to that pivotal moment in their existence. The more profound that moment is and the more brilliant and iconic the character the more potential there is to create a compelling piece of television that can hopefully connect with and move an audience.

Ethel’s death was an episode I wrote quite early on in my EastEnders career. It came from a story that I’d pitched at the quarterly story conference and then written up, so I’d already imagined the final moments to some extent and done a draft in my head before I came to actually write the script. I’d always wanted to write something about euthanasia and the return of Ethel to the show for a few months gave me the opportunity to tell that story about a much-loved character played by the brilliant Gretchen Franklin. Despite being elderly and quite frail she had an incredible vivacity and humour that ensured that the story, though tragic to some extent, never became dour.

The key to the power of the story and episode however was the choice of character that Ethel asks to help her end her life. Her oldest friend is Dot Cotton, who she has known since they were girls, and so it’s particularly potent that she asks her to help her die. The fact Dot is a devout Christian and therefore has to contemplate doing something so totally against her belief system gives the story a dramatic edge and a fascinating conflict for Dot to deal with. Which is the greater love, the love for her friend, or for her religion? And of course, Dot, played by the brilliant June Brown, one of the greatest, if not the greatest character that EastEnders has ever produced, gave it such a humanity, emotion and humour that the result really cut through with the audience.

Seeing Dot make that choice, after weeks of inner turmoil, and then hold Ethel in her arms and help her die, felt like a fitting end to their story and a perfect way to explore the key questions surrounding euthanasia in a way that always felt to be about character and emotion first, ideas and theme second. I also liked the fact that as the episode progressed to its heart-breaking conclusion there were moments of celebration and humour, as Ethel, a vibrant woman who burnt brightly her whole life, is carried across the street to the Vic to have one last drink with her friends and neighbours. Both actresses were able to effortlessly blend humour and pathos and their relationship, fraught with differences and conflict all their life, yet also full of love, was a beautiful thing to watch as it came to a poignant end."

Tony Jordan - 2008

"Writing for EastEnders was an amazing time for me, I still have people who want to talk to me about Sharongate, or Who Shot Phil and only a few weeks ago I heard someone on a beach in Spain shout to who I assumed was her Mum…”You’re not my Muvver!” to which the Mum replied “Yes I am”… I don’t think any other show I’ve done is ingrained into our society quite as much as EastEnders.

I’d written quite a few “two-handers”for the show, a really tight thirty minutes using only two of the characters, something we did sometimes for our major stories. My ambition was always to write the shows first “one-hander” or monologue, using a single character, so I was thrilled, years after I’d left the show, to be invited back to do exactly that. The episode was to be for the amazing June Brown as one of the shows greatest ever characters Dot Cotton.

My first problem was to work out who she was talking to! I didn’t want her talking to herself and it would have broken the show's format to have her speak directly to the camera. Eventually I had the idea of Dot, making a tape recording for husband Jim who was in hospital. Once I had that, it gave me the freedom to really dig down into Dot’s character and perhaps learn things about her we didn’t know, even after so many years in the show. Once I got into the rhythm of the dialogue the writing was quite quick, it was as though I couldn’t find any gaps to stop! June’s performance was stunning as I knew it would be, and she was nominated for a BAFTA that year which she absolutely deserved. It remains one of the episodes I’m most proud of."

Sarah Phelps - 2016

"I knew two things for certain the second I was asked to write Peggy Mitchell’s final episode. The first being that I would be bringing back Pat as a ghost. The second thing was that during the episode, I wanted Peggy to take off everything that made her who she was, the indomitable matriarch, all the make up, the jewellery, the impeccable clothes and appear to us, the viewers, as so frail, so vulnerable… and then I wanted her to put it all back on again, build herself back up for her final curtain.

A lot of people said to me “Bar won’t do that” but I thought, I bet she will. She’s a lioness and a proper actress, I bet she’ll do it. Dominic Treadwell-Collins and I went to see Bar and Scott at their home so I could tell her the story of her final episode. I told her about Pat coming back as a ghost because I wanted so badly for Peggy to have company and who would you want with you in those final moments? Your husbands? Your ex-lovers? God help us no, not the men. You’d want your most worthy adversary and your dearest friend, the face you’d slapped enough times, the face you knew as well as you knew your own. You’d want Pat, all lit up like a Woolworths Christmas tree to light you across the dark river.

When I told Bar how I wanted to replay the famous exchange between them “You bitch!” “You cow!” but with a different, elegiac tone, one of friendship and love, we all had tears in our eyes and I won’t lie, I cried writing it and I cried watching Bar and Pam perform it. I’m so proud of that episode, I wanted it to be a tribute to Bar as much as it was a tribute to Peggy Mitchell. And of course, she took it all off, the make up, the jewellery, the clothes, she let herself be seen as frail and vulnerable and frightened. Of course she did it, she was a lioness, our Bar. What an actress. They broke the mould when they made Dame Barbara Windsor."

Lauren Klee - 2023

"I love that writing on EastEnders means you get to flex so many different writing muscles, but these quiet, emotionally raw episodes are my favourite to write. Lola was a much loved character played brilliantly by Danielle Harold and the storyline was reaching its inevitable conclusion with her death. This meant there were none of the usual twists and turns to hang the script off, so instead I needed to find a thematic way through. My brilliant script editor (Amy Brandis) and I talked about this being the episode where Jay - Lola's boyfriend - battles with himself to say goodbye to her. I was keen to get a sense of them as a couple, even though at this point in the storyline Lola is too ill to speak, which led to Jay’s final monologue where he finally starts to talk to her and imagines what she would say back. That all tumbled out really naturally, which is usually a sign that a script is working.

The episode was also a chance to explore how each of our characters on the square react to the societally taboo subject of death. Phil, for example, finds it too confronting to be in the same room as Lola. I wanted to show how we find talking about death difficult, but also to find moments of humour - Honey’s faux pas, some lighter moments in the Vic - to give the always needed light and shade.

I made the decision to play the episode through the night, which felt truthful to the experience of people sitting with terminally ill loved ones nearing death, as well as giving the episode a more intimate feel. I was also keen for there to be some hope in the storyline, and the sun rising at the end of the script just as Lola dies, (not to sound too pretentious), gave it a bit of a spiritual dimension. The producers even gave me a fox in the final shot, which referred back to Jay’s monologue. It was really beautifully acted and directed and it made me cry.

I grew up watching EastEnders, so it's quite mad to think I’ve now written so many episodes! I, along with any writer who’s been on the show for a long time, have an almost tribal sense of loyalty towards these characters. It’s a real honour to inhabit the square vicariously through their eyes and see my words come to life thanks to the extraordinary talent and hard work of the team of people who make EastEnders what it is."

*Editor's Note: There were occasional A and B episodes in the early days of the show. In 2009 all episodes back to the start of the show were individually numbered, which resulted in this episode now being referred to (for example on IMDb) as 351. Find out more on the EastEnders wiki