EASTENDERS
35 years
OF EASTENDERS Les McCallum, from Isleworth, was a TV set designer and remembers the original set being built It was more than 30 years ago that my friend Mike Hagan, a construction manager at the BBC was given the task of creating the Albert square at Elstree studios. The set designer was Keith Harris, producer Julia Smith; the brief, to turn a muddy patch of land into an East End community with Victorian houses, a pub, laundrette, cafe and railway bridge, not forgetting the market. Mike was to construct the Victorian terraces, the pub, garages, roads, and various shops in the summer and autumn of 1984. The roads were to have drainage and streetlights. The houses, which had lighting and power sockets, were about eight ft deep. A steel structure supported the scenery and slippery metal stairs at the back gave access to the bedrooms on the first floor. The whole lot was designed to have a life span of five years. The brick walls were panels of plaster made to look like brickwork, fixed to plywood backing, painted and then aged. As the programme became popular and the five
20
years passed, the weather started to affect the scenery. The carpenters and painters had a never-ending job of keeping it in good repair, constantly replacing rotten timbers and crumbling plaster brickwork. Of course, when an actor was filmed going through the doorway the action would be continued in the studio, so it was essential that the camera didn’t see too far inside the doorway and would always be shot at an angle. The show had been running for ten years when I was sent to Elstree studios as a set designer and my first job was design Dot Cotton’s kitchen. EastEnders has two studios which contained all the interior sets. Some such as the Queen Vic, the Fowlers and the Laundrette never moved. Other sets were set in or struck according to the script for that week. As the sets were so close, seeing through the window could be a problem, as the view actually gave onto the back of another scenery panel. The solution was
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