Very true. I always believed that Anita Dobson's departure was the turning point for the show but in the two months between Anita and Anna leaving, the quality doesn't suffer at all. However after Anna leaves, a major light goes out.
Lou. You were a legend. She truely ruled the square. Throughout this episode this scene got my neck a lump. She reminded me of my gran. All the meetings. Final say etc etc. They don't have them anymore.
TCL TED my gran is still alive and still a battle axe but I can’t imagine what my life would be like once she goes. That was the greatest generation. Not many of them left now!
I’ve never even seen this show but I was hoping she’d have something good to say about Miss Brahms (as we know her). When she did I started to get a lump too, especially when Lou started to pull off her ring. I also just realized I’m old and ugly enough to be the head of my family!
The elderly of the 80s were the true wise people. RIP Anna Wing. Lou was such a legend. Eastenders ain't as good now as it was back then. I wonder what she would say to Ian now, and I wonder what she would say about Pete and Kathy's marriage
The woman who played it once appeared on the 'Word' in the 1990's, yeah what was she doing on a cult Friday evening young adults programme!, saying it was much tougher now to be a young person then it ever was in her own time, because no one had anything....
The way the camera slowly moves around every single Beale and Fowler member and the ominous silence feels like something out of the Godfather. Lou Corleone addressing the entire family.
Yes, I was reading Cheryl Ann Tweedy's Book from Girls Aloud and she and Kimberley Walsh grew up in a Neighborhood similar to this one. Alot of Boy Band/Girl Groups almost always grow up in Poverty but overcome.
laminage this is the Eastend of London. Cheryl Tweedy is a Geordie, she grew up in Newcastle. Nothing like the EastEnd of London in those days! Her parents didn’t live in the true poverty of the old EastEnd days.
@@willowmadhuridixit8991 My bad! Thanks for reminding me. These folks were true survivors. I look at The UK Blue Collar Families and they were more "realistic" than the US Blue Collar Families. The most memorable if not longest running were The Coopers on Guiding Light 1987-2009 where Socrates and his Brother Stavros came to the US From Greece whose real last name was Kouperakis. They ran a Diner Wheels & Meals that was built from Scratch. Yet their 5th Street was like Sesame Street. They would have fit right in if they visited Walford. I look at what Viki, Mark, Ian & Sharon went through and it was much rougher than what the US Soap Kids went through.
@@BLTKellys What made EastEnders & Coronation Street is that they really showed the challenges of Working Class Life. 5th Street on Guiding Light (US) never had the issues that these folks had.
@@BLTKellys Mal Young who worked on EastEnders worked on The Young & The Restless and "Tanked". He didn't realize that UK Soaps and US Soaps are as different as Night & Day. Daran Little who worked on Coronation Street also had issues when he wrote for All My Children in The US now he writes for EastEnders. Did The Older Actors like Lou Beale do Comedy, or Theater. In The US alot of the older Actors were in Movies and Broadway.
Love this scene! Summaries EE at the top of its game. Flawless ensemble acting, sparkling dialogue, sharp characterisation and attention to detail- everything 2015's EE lacks.
Great scene, I always thought it was an interesting idea that Lou just sort of decides her time on earth is done, despite not having any life threatening condition. You could say the character was such a force of nature that she had the ability to make that choice. I read that Anna Wing decided she wanted to leave and the producers were very against the idea and tried persuading her to stay on, which she declined.
Lou was an old battle axe but she was such an icon. She was tough and tough for a reason. Eastenders has really gone to the rocks since 💔. Need an an actor exactly like her again to bring eastenders back to what it was back in the 80s
I think that Dirty Den getting her pregnant and the like affected her to the point that she probably doesn't think she's worthy of having a proper relationship with a Man.
What an amazing scene 👏 and so outstandingly portrayed by Anna Wing, I don't even think that was rehearsed, just pure character, I had never seen this before, hats off to all involved 👍
I came across an old letter not long ago, written by my grandmother to my great-grandmother (her mother-in-law), wherein she referred to her as "Mum" or "Mother". I think it was a generational thing.
Never agreed with calling the inlaws, "Mum and dad" I always felt the opposite to you, and found it disrespectful to your own parents.. who gave birth to you, raised you, put clothes on your back and made sure food was in your tummy. You shouldnt throw the word mum and dad to people .. its reserved only to your mother and father! If ever you are to divorce, the inlaws will go back to being addressed by their own names..
It was not uncommon in the old days but my family never did it. My mum used to call her mother in law "granny" though because it didn't feel right calling her by her first name
The crazy thing is that today is 2019, 21 years have passed since this episode, and all the characters from this scene who are still alive on-screen (Ian, Michelle, Kathy and Martin) are still in the series (although only Ian and Kathy are still played by same actors). Also, even though character of Lou died in 1988, long before Pauline, Anna Wing actually outlived Wendy Richard by four years.
She really was an absolute force of nature 💪 Good for you Lou, tell it like it is with the whole lot of them! My step grandmother is (luckily, for now!) very much like her, an East End Oracle 🧐
If Anna wing had never had a personal crisis in faith over the shows moral direction I could have seen Lou being with us well into the 1990’s. her meeting the Mitchell’s would have been something!
Ive never seen this scene before, but i know what Lou Beale was like. I seriously thought she was gonna rip seven bells out of Arthur, but she was actually quite merciful on him. It was Michelle that she tore a new one to more than anyone else.
Being reminded of that episode, i really think scriptwriters of later episodes should do some research before writing new ones. This scene is what makes it hard to believe that Pauline finds a sister in Ireland years later. Also, where did Dot's relative in Ireland come from. I know Dot wasn't in this scene, it just came to mind. Lou was to down to earth, to have spoken to Michelle that way knowing she also had an illegitemit daughter.
Well, when the daughter that Lou and Albert had before marriage was born, they had her adopted and it just wasn't a subject spoken about as it WAS the 30s. I think her rant at Michelle was more about the fact that she just used Lofty and wasn't the nicest to him, honestly she was a bit selfish towards him. All Lofty tried to do was to be there for them and provide and she treated him like he was nothing. Lou's comment "If you don't watch out, you'll end up a lonely old spinster" was about Michelle's selfishness more than anything.
@@jenparry718 this was classic writing that was never as strong also better characters too then in the series than after the 90s I stopped watching but came back with Cindy's return and Xmas episodes have been good this year
I remeber this episode. I was in my mid 20's, and stationed in the UK (USAF). I got hooked on Eastenders early on. I figured Lou would have been long gone by now. I was shocked when she showed up at Wendy Richards' funeral; she looked great! Kind of strange how she outlived Ms Richards...
The magnificent Anna Wing will be 100 years old next year! To think, the First World War broke out the year she was born, in 1914. This woman is LIVING history!
Lou must have been vicious in her younger days. I can just see her giving a teenage Den serious evils whenever he came knocking for Pete, and giving Arthur the stink-eye when he started dating Pauline or threatening to hack Kenny's bits off when she caught him with Pat!
What she had to say to Ian kinda negated that earlier two hander when he broke down in her arms, the first time Julia’s Theme was used. Adam must have felt honoured to have worked with Anna.
They don't build em' like Lou Beale anymore. Watching old episodes and clips of Eastenders reminds me so much of my relatives I barely remember, who died when I was too young but their spirit somehow exists in my memory.
Laminage. Yes, it was Martin as a young child, Arthur and Pauline's son. As far as I remember it was Arthur who had an affair, NOT Pauline. She didn't have a boyfriend until AFTER Arthur died.
A similar thing happened on All My Children (1970-2011) where Bobby Martin went upstairs in the attic and they forgot him, kind of like Chuck on Happy Days. Then Samantha Marler went upstairs to study for her Law Exam and wasn't seen again.
You know, she was right about Pauline. Right about all of them really. But Pauline’s stands out the most to me. They really did break the mould when they made her; the only downside was when the writers began to lose who she really was, they couldn’t find the one to put her back together.
Another admirable thing is that The Beales & The Fowlers are still the heart & soul of the Show. Very smart move. When The Young & The Restless debuted in 1973 it focused on The Wealthy Brooks & The Blue Collar Fosters. Now it's about The Abbots and The Newmans.
I only remember bits of Eastenders when it first came out. I recognise all of those characters in this video and was younger than Michelle here. Now I'm around the age of Pauline, Kathy, Pete and Arthur and sat here thinking how young they look!
the sad thing is, none of them took her advice. Ian continued to care about money, Michelle continued to be selfish (albeit offscreen), Pauline let herself get old and frumpy before her time.
Those Elderly off 1980s London , really knew how to say things.."The post war generation " I imagine anyone reading this who are in their 40s/50s would agree.."Don't get Grans like that anymore hehe"
she also admitted "3 years earlier she farted in the microwave and shut the door" and when Arthur went to reheat his food he got a huge waft of digested sprout odour in the face.
Lou was so ight on about Ian and Money. If this were a US Soap Anna Wing would have gotten an Emmy award. You couldn't have a US Matriarch talking to her Family like this. Not Alice Horton (Days Of Our Lives), Not Nancy Hughes (As The World Turns) and not Bert Bauer (Guiding Light) who are all dead but they didn't have to struggle the way Lou Beale did.