‘The Queen Vic’. Wikimedia Commons/Matt Pearson. Some rights reserved.Eastenders is almost the UK’s most watched piece of fictional media. It had its thirtieth anniversary this year. It is based on the ups and downs of people in working class east London. Much of day-to-day life is organized around the pub, the ‘Queen Vic’. This is where people fall in love, fight, celebrate, give birth and where stories about who is doing what, and with who, unravel.
In April, a real-life pub on the other side of London met with a very different fate. The Carlton Tavern, which had been recommended by Historic England for listed status, was razed to the ground by two bulldozers without official permission, in order to make way for luxury flats. “What they did was just…unspeakably violent”, said councillor Jan Prendergast.
Things like this do not happen in Eastenders, which is funny, because a lot of implausible things do. Although popular, Eastenders is not a particularly accurate representation of life in London today. Communities in London are more fragmented, more ethnically diverse. They do not speak as much English as they do on Eastenders. And they are probably less violent too. Apart from anything else, the real Eastenders would not be able to afford to live in houses like those in Albert Square, or if they did, they would probably be sharing bedrooms and on insecure tenancies.
