EastEnders scriptwriter a 'massive fan' of show

A screenwriter who penned an EastEnders episode watched by more than 14 million viewers said it was always his dream to work on the show.

David Lloyd, from Backwell near Bristol, wrote nine episodes of the popular soap opera and even made cameo appearances in several.

As the show celebrated its 40th anniversary on Wednesday, he has recalled what it was like to work on the Albert Square set.

Producers initially rejected his sample script in 1996, but approached him seven years later to write the cliffhanger moment as Dennis Rickman made his debut.

Mr Lloyd started out writing children's cartoons, but said he always dreamed of turning his hand to dramas, with EastEnders the ultimate aim.

He told BBC Radio Bristol: "I'm a massive fan, I watched it right from the very first episode."

He rustled up a 30-minute sample script, featuring plenty of gossip and plot twists, in 1996 and mailed it to producers.

"A few months later I got a polite but rather sniffy letter from an assistant to say, 'thanks for sending it, it was OK, but not really what we're looking for'."

Mr Lloyd went on to write scripts for the BBC medical drama Doctors, subtly incorporating more than 30 Bristol City football players names into the episodes "as a bit of fun".

"I just slipped it under the radar, I used to do it all the time," he laughed.

"It was an entirely juvenile thing but they're just little inside jokes."

His work caught the eye of EastEnders producers, who asked for him by name.

"I was so proud of the fact that I'd got to write for this programme that everybody knows, but it was a really, really tough gig," he said.

"It's not like working down a mine, but in terms of TV, you're right at the sharp end of television because you have to deliver.

"As a big fan of the show it was very exciting, but also you're thinking 'I've got to get this right'."

Mr Lloyd's first cliffhanger aired on 14 April 2003 and saw Dennis Rickman, Sharon Mitchell's long-lost brother, turned up "out of the blue" at his late mother's funeral.

The episode got 14.18 million views, and paved the way for Rickman to become one of the show's central protagonists until his murder in 2005.

"You're very aware this is a big moment, what we call a 'doof doof' moment. To be able to write stuff like that was a real joy," he said.

Mr Lloyd also appeared on screen as a "strange cult leader in a white flowy robe" in the solar eclipse episode of 1999, as well as a paramedic tending to one of Grant Mitchell's victims.

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