New EastEnders: The Prequel

This lecture performance by Anahita Razmi considers and broods on the launch and structure of a non-existent “coming to your living room soon” soap opera, titled “New Eastenders”, and some of its possible and multi-referential preconditions.

Referring to the long-running British BBC soap opera “Eastenders”, set in London’s East End, the “New Eastenders” are proposing a geographical shift, considering the “Global East” – with its unclear definition – as the series’ new quixotic setting. The Near East- ‘Middle East’- Far East-Enders make the cast of the series, drafting a shifted storyboard for an ‘East and its End’.

The event considers TV soap operas from different contexts and countries, stereotypical storylines, pilots, prequels, trailers, happy-endings, sad-endings, open-endings, drama and TV studio sets as possibilities for its developing script. Film and TV narratives of the Beginning and the End, colonial, post-colonial and political references are included in the search for inspiration.

As a prequel to something not already scripted or broadcast, the series structure might be seen as deliberately non-linear and non-original.