The origin story of EastEnders is coming back to telly this summer.

UKTV has shared some big news for soap fans by confirming to Digital Spy that the Albert Square soap will re-air from the beginning on the Drama channel throughout August.

That means fans will get to go all the back to February 19, 1985 to see the iconic opening scene, in which Den Watts (Leslie Grantham), Ali Osman (Nejdet Salih) and Arthur Fowler (Bill Treacher) stumbled upon a lifeless Reg Cox.

Younger fans will also get a blast from the past seeing veteran characters Sharon Mitchell (Letitia Dean) and Ian Beale (Adam Woodyatt) when they were the age of the soap's current teen cast, like Louise Mitchell and Bex Fowler.

Coincidentally, this big announcement was made only days after the death of Leslie Grantham, whose character Dirty Den defined the first few years of the BBC One soap.

After these iconic episodes are screened on the Drama channel on weekdays at 12pm, they will also be available on-demand on the UKTV Play catch-up service.

"Drama is excited to give viewers another chance to watch how this iconic British show began," a spokesperson for the channel told us.

Last year, rival soap Coronation Street started showing reruns of its own classic episodes as a double-header at 2.40pm and 3.15pm on weekdays on ITV3. Corrie's history stretches all the way back to the early 1960s.

Current EastEnders episodes can be seen on BBC One, but the schedule is currently out of whack due to the World Cup. For a full rundown of soap schedule disruptions, please click here.

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Digital Spy Soap Scoop video – hit play below for all the latest EastEnders spoilers, as Max faces another backlash and Hayley cons Keanu.

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