By Lewis Knight

Published: Thursday, 01 September 2022 at 12:00 am

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Shane Richie has revealed that Alfie Moon was originally due to have a ‘Graduate’ affair with Peggy Mitchell in EastEnders.

The characters worked together in the Queen Victoria pub when Alfie first arrived in 2002, affectionately referring to boss Peggy (played by the late Barbara Windsor) as ‘The Duchess’.

The 1967 film The Graduate depicted an age-gap romance between Dustin Hoffman’s college graduate and an older woman named Mrs Robinson (Anne Bancroft).

Now, Shane Richie has discussed the original plan for Alfie when talking about his big return to the soap with RadioTimes.com and other outlets at a press event in Elstree last month.

Alfie returns with the intention of winning back his ex-wife Kat Slater (Jessie Wallace) as she prepares for her wedding.

Discussing how the pairing of Alfie and Kat came about almost two decades ago, Richie revealed that the original plan for Alfie was actually very different.

“I’ll tell you what you want to know. Well, you know, 20 years ago, the whole Kat and Alfie format purely happened by accident,” Richie revealed.

The actor explained: “When I turned up 20 years ago, [writer] Tony Jordan was going to create The Graduate story with Alfie and Peggy. Yes, and I was gonna be Dustin Hoffman – I don’t know how that was going to work – and then we were going to recreate The Graduate story.

“And then, off-camera, I met Jessie and we were having a right laugh, and the writers saw this chemistry. That relationship happened by accident, and from now keeps escalating. 

“Now, 20 years later, all these things that have happened between Kat and Alfie, and there’s still a spark.”

The character will now be at the centre of a love quadrangle with Kat, Phil Mitchell (Steve McFadden) and Sharon Watts (Letitia Dean).

Discussing the current culture on the set of EastEnders as he returns to the soap, Richie was not short on praise for new executive producer Chris Clenshaw.

“It’s strange… it’s very different, you know,” he said. “I mean, when I left, left, four years ago, I came in to do a storyline, get pushed down the stairs and I left to go and do something else. And coming back, there’s really a sense – because, you know, I do a lot of theatre – there’s a sense of a theatre community. But the way it’s changing, I think it’s down to this man [Clenshaw] here.

“Listen, I know he’s got a ponytail but it doesn’t bother me (laughs), because he’s grown up with the show, and he knows the DNA, he knows how people work. I’ve come back, and I feel I’m part of something that’s so strong at the moment, I’ll give you an example…”

BBC, Jack Barnes/Kieron McCarron

Richie recalled: “I turned up here… I’ve known Steve [McFadden] for a long time and the only time I used to see Steve was when we were on set. And now, I see Steve sitting down, we’ve got the Green Room area, which is open plan, and we’ve got our own Costa coffee. And everybody’s there, including the scriptwriters. I see Steve here, and I’ve never experienced this before where all the cast [has] a real sense of community. It feels so positive right now and I can only just, you know, flag-wave for it.

“And like I said, it feels like a touring production that all these actors, and producers and the writers, and we have access to each other’s lives right now, forget what’s happening on screen. I think what you see on screen is a result of what’s happening behind the cameras.”

Read more:

• EastEnders cast: Who is joining, leaving and returning to the soap?
• EastEnders biggest reveals since Sharongate

EastEnders airs on BBC One on Mondays to Thursdays at 7:30pm. Visit our dedicated EastEnders page for all the latest news, interviews and spoilers. If you’re looking for more to watch, check out our TV Guide.

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