Former EastEnders writer warns standard is slipping

Published Tuesday 8 May 2007 at 17:00 by Matthew Hemley

Ex-EastEnders writer, Tony Jordan, has criticised the quality of the long-running BBC1 soap, claiming it is “going through the doldrums”.

Jordan, who worked on the show for 18 years but left in February, told The Stage the show was better when it only ran for two episodes each week and raised concern over the BBC’s plans to up the weekly episode count to five.

He said: “Was it a better show when it was twice a week? Absolutely - without a shadow of a doubt.

“The reason for that is because they were shooting just an hour’s worth of television and had time to spend on each individual episode.

“If you are producing two-and-a-half hours a week television it’s basically a movie a week and some things suffer for that.

“EastEnders is going through the doldrums a little bit lately, but the one thing about EastEnders is that it will always come back because there is a great team of people working in it.”

Jordan, who was chief scriptwriter and series consultant on EastEnders, also said he is planning to launch a screenwriting competition through his new production company, Red Planet Pictures, later this year.

He added: “I used to do workshops and seminars with new writers at EastEnders and I am trying to find a way to continue that with my production company.

“I really want to find new writing talent and help them get their voice out there.”