30 years of EastEnders.

First broadcast on 19th February 1985. There are many reasons to loathe this programme but, as a famous black actor once explained to me, the worst thing is its inherent racism. He couldn’t bear EastEnders because of its apparent refusal to portray black characters in a bad light. But it was the baddie roles, he said – the Dirty Dens and the Mitchell Brothers – that could really boost an actor’s career and those roles were only given to white people. So with their mis-placed political correctness, the BBC were actually denying black people opportunities in the workplace. Idris Elba had to go to America to play a drug dealer because he knew it was unlikely that he’d be offered that sort of chance here. However, Richard Blackwood is about to join the cast as a “villain”. Hallelujah! It may have taken EastEnders 30 years to treat black people equally but better late than never.