Former Eastenders star Anita Dobson admits she no longer watches the Eastenders Christmas special, despite drawing 30 million viewers to Angie Watts divorce storyline
It remains one of the biggest TV moments of all time: the 1986 Christmas Day episode of Eastenders when Dirty Den served Angie Watts with divorce papers.
More than 30 million viewers were glued to their festive screens, and a further 28 million watched the fallout in the Boxing Day episode the following day. But now, even its star Anita Dobson says she doesn’t watch the Eastenders Christmas specials.
“I don’t really watch television very much at all,” she admits. Angie’s scenes were a culmination of a lengthy plot that saw her lie to her husband that she had a terminal illness.
Den triumphantly served her with divorce papers, announcing: “This, my sweet, is a letter from my solicitor telling you that your husband has filed a petition for divorce. Merry Christmas, Ange.”
Leslie Grantham (Den) and Anita Dobson (Angie) in 1985 when EastEnders began (Image: BBC)
But Anita, 75, who is married to Queen drummer Sir Brian May, says she does “not really” keep up with the Eastenders Christmas specials, which last year saw The Six storyline revealed.
“I don’t really watch television very much at all,” says Anita. “I watch things like a series because then you can get your teeth into it, and you can watch it when you want to rather than having to keep playing catch up.”
She adds of Eastenders: “I tend to always miss it. But I do try to catch up with stuff now and again. But it’s hard with that because it turns over so quickly. You’d have to be constantly catching up. So no, I have watched bits and pieces.”
However, Anita is thrilled that the BBC has now included all the previous Christmas specials of the soap opera on iPlayer, including the iconic 1986 scenes. “People will be saying to each other, ‘Darling, is that woman still here?’” giggles Anita.
She also laughed, while speaking at the TRIC Christmas lunch, that Brian’s bandmate, the late Freddie Mercury, would affectionately call her by her Eastenders character’s name, chuckling: “Sometimes he’d go ‘Oi, Ange!’”
Anita starred earlier this year in Channel 4 comedy-horror Generation Z, but admits she was quite shocked at the gore in the series when it aired. “I did find it quite scary watching it back as some of the scenes I wasn’t involved in, I hadn’t obviously seen when they were shot and they were gory,” she said.
However, she enjoyed letting loose as a zombie-style character. “I really got into it,” she adds. “It sort of brings out all the angst, you know, you could just let rip. You could think about the things that made you angry, the way the world ’s going.”
Anita previously told the Mirror that she and husband Brian would be spending the festive period in Lapland together, as Brian recovers after suffering a minor stroke.
She added of his recovery: “He’s much better now, he’s stabilised now, which is brilliant. I just hope we don’t have any more recurrences.”
This year’s Eastenders Christmas special is set to see an explosive reveal of an affair between Cindy Beale (Michelle Collins) and Junior Knight (Micah Balfour).
