In the Spotlight: Simon Ashdown

Simon Ashdown began writing for EastEnders in 1995 and since then has established himself as a key talent on the show’s core writing team. Over the past fifteen years Simon has penned many memorable episodes including the moving episode which saw Dot help her friend Ethel to die, Whitney’s abuse at the hands of Tony, Stacey’s bi-polar and the recent live episode to mark 25 years.

In addition to his continuing commitments as a writer, Simon took over the role of ’Series Consultant’ in 2007. Ellie & Charlotte recently caught up with Simon to discover what his role involves and to gain an insight into some of the storylines he has been responsible for...

When did you start writing for EastEnders and how did it come about?

I started writing for EastEnders about fifteen years ago. I was offered a job as a script editor on the show but said I wanted to be a writer. Louise Berridge, the storyliner at the time, said if I did six months as a script editor she’d offer me a script. I prevaricated about it for a while, then accepted. Within three months Louise had left. Fortunately John Yorke, who took over as storyliner, was willing to take a punt and gave me a script to write. They liked it.

Do you remember the first episode you wrote?

It was one of those eps that’s building towards a big one, but isn’t terribly big itself. It had lots of things going on and lots and lots of scenes – in retrospect too many. I slaved over it, but had no idea how it would go down. I gave it in and John called me shortly afterwards and said lovely, encouraging things. I got a second script commission the week after.

Since July 2007, we’ve seen you billed as the Series Consultant. Can you tell us a bit about your role?

Apart from writing scripts, which I still do, the series consultant has to have a clear overview of the storytelling on the show. I’m heavily involved in producing each month’s story document and work with the story team and Bryan Kirkwood on shaping and revising that document before it’s sent to the writers to be commissioned as episodes. I generate and write stories and then nurse them from the page to the screen. Recent stories I’ve written include Stacey’s bipolar, Stacey and Max affair, Whitney and Tony abuse story, Billie’s death etc. I attend some castings and Bryan Kirkwood and I do character workshops with some of the actors. I attend some meetings with cast members to discuss forward planning of their stories. I attend the monthly writer’s meetings and quarterly conferences at which the writers plan stories and discuss what is and isn’t working on the show. I do talks for new writers and attend meetings, lots of meetings. I try and keep an overview of where we are going with stories over the next year or two. It’s important to do this otherwise you get sucked in by the detail and forget the impact that decisions you make now will have on the long term plan. For me it’s vital to have a clear sense of what those big moments are we’re building to over the year ahead.

Do you have a favourite episode you’ve written, or perhaps a favourite storyline you’ve been involved with?

Hard to choose. I could pick a few. I loved writing the Dot and Ethel story as their relationship was so warm and stretched back so many years, felt emotionally very rich. I loved writing the Max/Stacey story line as I wrote the story up in detail before we even cast Max so we had two years plus of material and knew where we were going from the off. I thought all the actors in that story were brilliant and still are. I loved the bipolar story, especially the Stacey POV episode. Everyone did brilliant work on that. I also felt proud of the impact of the Bianca/Whitney/Tony abuse storyline.

Who is your favourite character to write for and why?

Another impossible question. I can give you a few recent examples but there a so many brilliant actors it’s impossible to name one. I’ve written stories and lots of episodes for Stacey over the last five years and she’s never disappointed. I think she’s quite extraordinary, a real instinct for the truth of a scene. She can do whatever you write for her. I’ve also written a lot for Max and Tanya who are both brilliant, again very truthful, charismatic and powerful. Bianca’s brilliant, funny, real and very moving. Dot’s an icon and I’m going to write a very focussed episode about her in the new year. Ronnie and Roxy brought the show back to life and I loved writing their story with Archie. Phil is always utterly convincing. I better stop or I’ll just end up listing the entire cast.

How did writing the live episode compare to writing a standard episode?

Same challenges as usual plus a couple of extra thrown in. Firstly it had to be a good episode in it’s own right. Good structure, good story, some truthful emotion and high impact moments. In addition to the problems of just making the ep work there were enormous practical considerations. For example you couldn’t take a character from an interior to an exterior without a 3 – 4 minute gap to allow them to be ferried from the sets to the LOT. This had a massive impact on structure so I had to continually jiggle the scene order around to try and make it work. You couldn’t make some actor’s speeches too long as they might not remember them. We were very ambitious with our stunt which caused all kinds of issues. When Bradley fell from the roof, we needed enough time for the actor to sprint from the scaffolding he’d been standing on to the the spot outside the Vic where he’d fallen. This meant having to fill that space with all kinds of business and yet still keep the story moving. it was all very closely timed. In addition to the above all kinds of things went wrong in the run up. Lacey lost her voice and up until the day before it looked like she might not be able to speak at all. A couple of people forgot their lines, but it was this kind of minor error that actually made it exciting and feel live. All in all it was an amazing experience, one of my best on the show.

In light of how successful the live episode was, would you like to do another?

Yes, and I have an idea for one, but it’s very very different in style. All I’ve got to do is persuade Bryan.

Is there any extra pressure when penning a much anticipated episode such as the live?

Yes, but it usually gets forgotten in the process of doing all the work, then you suddenly stop and remember what you’re doing. There’s this strange disconnection between you, the writer, sitting on your own making this stuff up and the sheer scale of the show.

Some of your key episodes have centred around issue based stories, such as Stacey’s bi-polar and the euthanasia plot with Dot and Ethel. How much research goes into the planning of those episodes? Are there any concerns you, as the writer, have to take into consideration?

Loads of research takes place. The story originates with an idea about a character I love and want to tell a story about. The issue comes second. We write the story first, then we do the research. it’s never the other way round. it’s got to be a good, truthful, emotional story first and then we apply the research and endeavour to make it work. The research always has an impact on the story, for example in the Tony and Whitney story every draft of the scripts went to our advisors and we factored their advice into the final version. The most important thing with this kind of story is to write a truthful, powerful story about something important. You want it to have impact but it has to be real. When these stories work they are enormously rewarding. For example after the Tony/Whitney story we had messages from members of the audience who had watched the story and felt it had honestly depicted something that happened to them. Some people wrote in to say that they hadn’t really understood what had happened to them until they watched the story. Of course these stories don’t always have the impact you desire but when they do it’s enormously rewarding.

The Brannings seem to thrive under your guidance and there’s been an idea mooted on our forums about a possible spin off focusing on those characters when they were younger. Would you like to write something like that?

Why not? Although spin offs are usually a bad idea.

There’s been some concern on our forums that the show is starting to rely too heavily on infidelity storylines. Thinking back to the classic Cindy/David affair and the huge impact of that story; do you ever worry that the amount of characters having affairs now has diluted the impact these storylines can have?

Some of our best stories have been about infidelity, the pain of betrayal and the terrible consequences of it’s discovery. David and Cindy, Bianca and Dan, Phil and Sharon, Stacey and Max all built over time, concerned characters we really cared about and had enormous impact. I think the problem is when the currency is devalued and lots of characters are having affairs too casually with little real impact. From time to time this does happen on the show and it’s usually a mistake. We’ll have to be vigilant.

You’ve written the Christmas Day episode of EastEnders again this year. Without giving anything away, can you sum up what we can expect from it?

A bit of festive fun, but not too much. Some bad table manners. Alfie looking cuddly in his Santa suit. Stacey having to face up to the consequences of what she did to Archie a year ago. Max and Ryan having to make tough decisions. Janine resorting to desperate means to get what she wants. A dramatic exit. Is that vague enough?

Was writing always an ambition for you?

Sound corny to say but it was actually. My teacher told me I should be a writer when I was 7 and I fancied the idea. it then took me a long time to get round to making it happen.

What was your first professional writing job?

Writing short educational comedy films for John Cleese. It was a bizarre project which never got made but kept me busy for six months. Some times we used to work in a wing of the Cleese mansion, where there were other rooms, with other writers working on other unnamed projects.

Do you have any advice for any budding writers out there who may come across this?

It’s a cliché but all you can really do is write and then do your best to get your writing seen by someone who can get it made. I think there’s a lot of value in just starting off writing exactly what you feel like, not worrying what anyone will think. Then show it to agents, fellow writers, producers – anyone. It’s a mistake to try and second guess what people want. Most people don’t know what they want till they see it. Don’t give up.

Thank you Simon!