EastEnders 30th delivers, nets 10.9m and breaks Twitter
30 years to the day BBC One launched its own very distinctive brand of gritty and unglamorous soap drama, last night’s celebrations finally delivered a festival of payoffs and surprises for long-term fans of EastEnders.
7:30pm brought an hour-long edition of the soap, with the opening scenes mirroring precisely what had originally kicked off the drama so long ago. The discovery of Nick Cotton’s rotting corpse harked back to a much simpler time in soap land but all eyes were on the Beales’ activities, with viewers being promised that the sixty minute mixture of pre-recorded and live scenes would finally out Lucy Beale’s killer.
While the main focus remained on the despondent Beale household, viewers were blindsided with a handful of shocking surprises, the most unexpected being the scene in which Phil Mitchell met up with a very alive Kathy Beale in a live broadcast from the docks of the Thames.
A remarkable audience of 10.8 million viewers tuned in for the mostly-impressive live scenes, which included Sonia delivering another toilet baby (not hers this time), a tearful Dot Cotton leaving the Square for the final time, Phil warning Kathy to never return (a bit too late for all that) under the glare of the Millennium Dome and Ian Beale finally confronting his new wife Jane about his daughter’s murder.
The thrilling mostly-live hour of television managed to pay tribute to the show’s origins while keeping a massive 45% audience share gripped throughout, peaking at 11.3 million viewers as Ian finally returned home for the confrontation.
Less than an hour later at 9:25pm viewers were back in droves to discover that Lucy Beale’s last night on Earth wasn’t as clean cut as ‘the step-mum did it’, in a typically devastating twist. The impressively-directed 35 minute flashback episode looked at the events of Good Friday from Lucy’s point of view and was intent on keeping viewers guessing until the final few moments.
An average audience of 10.3 million viewers witnessed the final scene, broadcast live, in which Jane discovered Lucy’s lifeless corpse in the living room before turning around and seeing little Bobby Beale standing there with the murder weapon.
The ultimate reveal secured a 42% share for BBC One, capping off a hugely successful year of hard work in the lead up to the anniversary.
Naturally the two editions of the soap gave the internet plenty to talk about and easily topped Thursday’s TV Twitter chart.
Not only that, the first episode actually broke the record for a soap according to Kantar Media, generating 519,359 tweets with the proper reveal afterwards at 9:25pm spawning another 499,424.
Overnight data is available each morning in mediatel.co.uk’s TV Database, with all BARB registered subscribers able to view reports for terrestrial networks and key multi-channel stations. Overnight data supplied by TRP are based on 15 minute slot averages. This may differ from tape checked figures, which are based on a programme’s actual start and end time.
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