BBC plans to drag soap opera out of 1980s timewarp to reflect more closely the 21st-century gentrified east London

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

EastEnders fans still acclimatising to the arrival of screen hard man Danny Dyer as the Queen Vic's landlord, cast against type as a modern dad at ease with his son's homosexuality, had better prepare for some more upheaval.

The BBC plans to drag the long-running soap out of its 1980s timewarp to reflect more closely the 21st-century reality of gentrified east London, even promising to introduce "the edges of Shoreditch" to the show.

Last week the EastEnders writing team visited the Hackney square used as the inspiration for the show's location when it began in 1985, at the start of a four-day story conference to thrash out plots for the next three months.

#EastEnders story conference day one - writers in Fassett Square. Strange and familiar at the same time... pic.twitter.com/GL673dicjk — DomTreadwellCollins (@dominictc) January 19, 2014

Dominic Treadwell-Collins, EastEnders' executive producer, wants Albert Square to look like a real-life east London neighbourhood in 2014.

"It should feel more like London. It's been frozen in aspic for too long," Treadwell-Collins told the latest issue of Radio Times. "Sharon said recently that she's looking to be a landlady and as a result you'll see the edges of Shoreditch creeping into EastEnders. It's got to reflect the modern world."

House prices are one indication of how Hackney, like other east London boroughs, has changed in the last 30 years, with gentrification and an influx of new residents.

Property website Zoopla puts the average price of Fassett Square housing at £605,000, up £55,000 or 10% in a year and more than double the 1995 average of £276,000. Zoopla estimates that a two-bedroom terrace on the square would now cost £500,000, while a four bedroom, semi-detached house would set a buyer back more than £900,000.

Treadwell-Collins, who took charge of EastEnders in August, has already pulled the BBC1 soap out of an autumn ratings slump, creating a renewed buzz around the show with the introduction of Dyer's Mick Carter and his on-screen family over Christmas.

The veteran actor Timothy West has also joined the show as Carter's father Stan, a curmudgeonly and opinionated former Billingsgate fishmonger.

Last week the BBC unveiled plans for a new EastEnders set, providing a longer term opportunity to change the look of the show to help it better reflect modern east London. The new set in Elstree studios in north London, EastEnders' home since 1985, will be 20% larger at 9,000 square metres and is due to open in 2018.

The BBC has declined to provide further details – including what it will cost – but the expanded set will feature a new high street with shops and businesses reflecting a "greater sense of the modern east end of London".

However, this is unlikely to mean Walford being overrun by pop-up burger restaurants, microbrewery ales, fixed-wheel bikes and skinny jeans, according to All About Soap editor, Johnathon Hughes. "I don't think it's going to completely refocus itself into Hipster Square from Albert Square.

"EastEnders is about family and community and if it [were] trying to be too much like Shoreditch you wouldn't get families with 2.4 children living there."

Hughes added that while the show had always provided "an old fashioned view of that part of London", it also needed to offer a "little nod" to changing times.

"It's interesting that they are going to acknowledge changes in that area of society. For a long time EastEnders has been accused of not changing with the times, such as how could real people afford to live in Georgian terraced houses [that large] in the east end of London," Hughes said.

"If it has a hipster wine bar opening on Albert Square then that's a nod to what is happening in the outside world. But the important thing for EastEnders is that it remains true to its core values and it has stories [with which] the audience can engage."

Hughes said that the BBC1 soap and Coronation Street were both about families, relationships and community, "and maybe even that has died in real life".

He added: "It's not real, it's a bit nostalgic, a TV version of real life. How they explore characters and issues and emotions is more important than the geography of it. The heart of it will still be Albert Square and the pub."

• This article was amended on 28 January 2014 to correct the spelling of Johnathon Hughes's name

The most watched EastEnders episode from 1986 ... revisited

The Queen Vic. Christmas Day.

Pat Butcher Good cook are you?

Customer Not bad.

Pat Butcher I thought so. I've seen you down the Spanish deli ordering the jamón iberico ...

Customer Yeah. It's nice to get some pukka tucker in for Christmas...

Pat Butcher Watch your bloody language, son.

Customer Sorry?

Pat Butcher You heard. You can't go round saying Christmas in here. We're a bleedin' multi-faith, multicultural community. So it's Happy Holidays, right?

Dot Cotton Oh come on, Pat. Don't be so hard on him. He's new to the area. Have you got a light?

Pat Butcher Leave it out, Dot. You know you can't smoke in here. Have you tried those new e-cigarettes? Angie swears by them.

Dot Cotton I have, but I can't get on with them, you know. My Nick says they are more addictive than heroin …

Pat Butcher And how is Nick doing?

Dot Cotton Oh, much better thank you. He's been out of rehab for six months now and is doing voluntary work at the new internet coffee house drop-in centre. He keeps emailing me at Dot Dot Cotton...

Dirty Den Oi, haven't you two women got anything better to do than gossip about feminism 4.0 … ?

Dot Cotton How's Ange? She looks a bit under the weather …

Dirty Den She's just had a bit of a gruelling rebirthing session. Give us both a moment, will you …

Angie Oh Den! This is the happiest I've ever been! Pour me another glass of prosecco, will you ...

Dirty Den I think you've 'ad enough.

Angie Since you came back, I've felt like a new woman. I feel as if all our intimacy issues have been resolved...

Dirty Den Do you now? Well how come you've been telling me a big bleedin' porky for the last six months?

Angie What porky?

Dirty Den Don't try and pretend with me Angie. It don't work no more. You know exactly what I mean. You've been seeing a new therapist behind my back, you slag.

Angie But Colin is a fully qualified Jungian analyst.

Dirty Den Shut it. We're through.

Cue music and end credits.

by John Crace