What happened on EastEnders' 30th anniversary? The show gambled on going out live — and not everything went to plan
What happened on EastEnders' 30th anniversary? Inside the BBC's 2015 live week, the gamble behind it, and the moment viewers still bring up a decade later.
In February 2015, EastEnders celebrated turning thirty the way any self-respecting British institution would: by doing something enormously risky in front of the entire nation and hoping for the best. Live week — officially "The Week of Revelations" — ran from 17 to 20 February, with live elements stitched into every episode and one question hanging over the lot: who killed Lucy Beale?
The gamble
The BBC had form here — the 25th anniversary in 2010 was a fully live episode that unmasked Stacey as Archie Mitchell's killer — but 2015 upped the stakes considerably. This time the killer's identity was kept secret even from most of the cast and crew until the last possible moment, and the reveal came in a live flashback episode: it was Bobby Beale. Ian's son. Aged ten. A decade of "you're not my mother" memes was born in a single doof-doof, and to be fair to the show, nobody saw it coming, which is rather the point of a whodunit.
The moment nobody scripted
But ask anyone what they remember from live week and it isn't Bobby. It's two words: "How's Adam?"
Jo Joyner, back as Tanya Branning for the anniversary, asked Jane about her husband using the name of the actor who plays Ian — Adam Woodyatt — instead of, you know, "Ian". In her very first live moments back on the Square. Her face realising it in real time deserves its own BAFTA. Twitter combusted. Joyner, to her enormous credit, got her retaliation in first with a cheeky tweet at Woodyatt, and later told the press:
"It's not a line fluff, you can't talk your way out of it."
She's also said the aftermath followed her about, admitting:
"I've seen that image a few million times."
And here's the thing — the gaffe made the week. Proof of liveness, delivered free of charge. A child murderer shocked the nation; three accidental syllables charmed it. Only EastEnders.