Barry's Beef

that I love Eastenders










Watching the Eastenders omnibus, a real Sunday afternoon treat, it was funnier than usual. Firstly Ben, the devil-child and from my extensive poll the joint least popular Mitchell, admitted to hitting Freddie - which left Little Mo unable to concentrate on anything. Now in soap operas there is a rule of how to communicate that someone is under stress and doesn't hear what others are saying. One character will say something to which the under pressure character will reply 'Oh yes'. Sensing something awry the concerned character will keep on saying things progressively more surreal to which the character under pressure continues to absent-mindedly say 'Uh huh'. In this case Charlie Slater asks Little Mo something, sorry can't remember what, Little Mo obligingly answers 'yes'. Charlie, smelling a rat, says 'Yeh I was involved in a pile-up on the M25', 'Oh right' answers Little Mo. 'Yeh cab was a total write-off' continues Charlie, Little Mo is still miles away and then Charlie asks 'What's up?' to which Little Mo immediately answers 'No, nothing - what do you mean?' So the mystery is how did she hear that but not the rest of Charlie's blethering?
And later on Minty goes into Billy's video shop and seeing his mate starts a chant of 'Billy, Billy, Billy boy, Billy boy, Billy boy' - a truly amazing and genius ditty - I'd love to be an Eastenders scriptwriter. And if that wasn't good enough Sonja goes into the video shop to rent out Amelie - I didn't think advertising was permitted on the Beeb? - and Billy says it wasn't much good - you know all too emotional and not enough action - and then says 'That must be the advantage of being a lesbian' - just top class.
If it wasn't for Eastenders sometimes I think I really would go mad.