This may seem a little nerdy but I'm moderately obsessed by the club that's just opened up in EastEnders. This time it's called R&R, after Ronnie and Roxy, the Mitchell sisters, but it's been through many incarnations before.
I've done a bit of clubbing in my time and I can safely say that I have never seen a club quite like this one. First, it seems to be open in the late afternoon. Now, some London clubs are indeed open in daylight hours, but that's mostly because they're still hosting afterparties that began when the other clubs closed at 6am. I don't see any sign of an afterparty crowd in R&R.
Second, it seems to be reasonably busy when it's open in daylight hours. Busy, that is, with the oddest mix of punters I've ever seen. There are token trendy folk throwing shapes, there's Peggy Mitchell, there are the deeply untrendy Gary, Minty and Heather, and there are the laughable quasi-gangsters in the form of Jack Branning and Jase. And they're all there knocking back drinks at club prices in the middle of the day, listening to the dire music. It wouldn't last five minutes in the real world.
Which brings me on to the strange micro-economy that is Albert Square. I know it's a soap and we're supposed to suspend our disbelief when we watch it, but at the moment it's all so daft that it's hard to miss the absurdities.
Everyone who has a job works within about two minutes of home. How nice would that be? You never see anyone struggling to Walford East tube looking bleary and clutching an overpriced cup of Starbucks as they fight their way onto an overcrowded train that's running late. Whenever anyone's without a job, the caff, the pub or now the club just happens to be looking for someone to clean, serve or wait tables. The houses in Albert Square seem to have a limitless supply of beds, as anyone rocking up in the area finds a bunk with someone - chez Slater, chez Pat or at the pub, mostly - within about five minutes. There's never any discussion of pay rates, or rent. And what exactly does Max do for a living?
Given that most of the Square's denizens are on pretty low wages - I doubt Ian pays a penny over the minimum wage - it seems to support a bustling economy. The pub is always packed, the market is always busy, the caff always has people eating, and even Tania's salon has a steady procession of clients wanting their nails or their hair done for a night out.
Which brings me back to the club. Doubtless it's going to be a vehicle for yet another laughably bad plotline concerning cardboard cutout gangsters and possibly a drugs-are-bad storyline, too, but it's just the latest in a long line of increasingly silly devices that the script editors are forced to deploy in the battle to keep viewing figures up.
I don't think EastEnders has had its day, but I do think it needs to focus on what made it good in the first place: quality drama and slow-burning, credible plotlines with characters that didn't make you splutter with laughter.
