Tony Holland
| Tony Holland | |
|---|---|
Holland being interviewed on an
EastEnders Revealed episode. |
|
| Born | Anthony John Holland 18 January 1940 Shoeburyness, Essex, England |
| Died | 28 November 2007 (aged 67) London, England |
| Occupation | Screenwriter, actor |
| Nationality | British |
| Notable works | EastEnders |
| Spouse | Paul Wade (2007) (civil partner) |
Anthony John "Tony" Holland (18 January 1940 – 28 November 2007) was an English actor and television screenwriter best known as a writer and co-creator of the BBC soap opera EastEnders.
Tony Holland began his career as an actor, appearing in the 1966 Doctor Who serial The Savages and Message for Posterity, a serial for The Wednesday Play in 1967. That same year, a play he developed, The Isle is Full of Noises, was taken up by the BBC and produced by Thirty-Minute Theatre. It was from there, Holland turned to scriptwriting.
Through his agent, Holland was landed a job on Z-Cars as a writer and script editor in 1970. It was here that he met producer and director, Julia Smith and started a long and successful working relationship.
Holland and Smith became an established producer/script-editor team during their time on Z-Cars and went on to work for the BBC's hospital drama, Angels. It was during their time on Angels that the format of the programme was expanded from weekly minute-long episodes to a bi-weekly half-hour serial, with the further possibility of the show being aired all year round.
In 1983 the BBC approached Holland and Smith to produce a new experience for their channel, a bi-weekly soap-opera that would rival the long established ITV favourites, Coronation Street, Crossroads Motel and Emmerdale Farm. The BBC wanted this new serial to reflect "London, today!" and together, Smith and Holland came up with the idea of a programme set in a Victorian Square within the East End of London, focusing on its close working-class families and eccentric Cockney inhabitants. Thus, EastEnders was born.
Holland and Smith wanted a primary focus of EastEnders to be a large extended family, representative of the type most typically found in the East End of London. Holland was from a large London family himself, and in creating some of the show's characters he was able to use some of his own experiences as inspiration for EastEnders central clan the Beales and Fowlers. In creating the stories and characters, Holland delved into family stories, past and present. His aunt Lou Beale came to inspire the EastEnders character of the same name, along with her two children Peter (Pete) and Pauline. Holland also used some of his experiences as a barman in London's pubs and clubs to create the dynamic pairing of Den and Angie Watts, the owners of the Queen Victoria.
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