{"id":21252,"date":"2022-09-01T23:00:31","date_gmt":"2022-09-01T21:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1700879"},"modified":"2022-09-01T23:26:11","modified_gmt":"2022-09-01T21:26:11","slug":"eastenders-alfie-moon-was-set-to-have-graduate-affair-with-peggy-mitchell","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/eastenders-alfie-moon-was-set-to-have-graduate-affair-with-peggy-mitchell\/","title":{"rendered":"EastEnders\u2019 Alfie Moon was set to have \u2018Graduate\u2019 affair with Peggy Mitchell"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Lewis Knight\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Thursday, 01 September 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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Shane Richie has revealed that Alfie Moon was originally due to have a \u2018Graduate\u2019 affair with Peggy Mitchell in EastEnders<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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 \u2018The Duchess\u2019.<\/p>\n

The 1967 film The Graduate depicted an age-gap romance between Dustin Hoffman\u2019s college graduate and an older woman named Mrs Robinson (Anne Bancroft).<\/p>\n

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

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

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll tell you what you want to know. Well, you know, 20 years ago, the whole Kat and Alfie format purely happened by accident,\u201d Richie revealed.<\/p>

The actor explained: \u201cWhen 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 \u2013 I don\u2019t know how that was going to work \u2013 and then we were going to recreate The Graduate story.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd 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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNow, 20 years later, all these things that have happened between Kat and Alfie, and there\u2019s still a spark.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

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Shane Richie, Jessie Wallace, Steve McFadden, and Letitia Dean in EastEnders.<\/span><\/figcaption> BBC<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s strange\u2026 it\u2019s very different, you know,\u201d he said. \u201cI 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\u2019s really a sense \u2013 because, you know, I do a lot of theatre \u2013 there\u2019s a sense of a theatre community. But the way it\u2019s changing, I think it\u2019s down to this man [Clenshaw] here.<\/p>\n

\u201cListen, I know he\u2019s got a ponytail but it doesn\u2019t bother me (laughs), because he\u2019s grown up with the show, and he knows the DNA, he knows how people work. I\u2019ve come back, and I feel I\u2019m part of something that\u2019s so strong at the moment, I\u2019ll give you an example\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

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Shane Richie as Alfie Moon in EastEnders.<\/span><\/figcaption> BBC, Jack Barnes\/Kieron McCarron<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

Richie recalled: \u201cI turned up here\u2026 I\u2019ve 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\u2019ve got the Green Room area, which is open plan, and we\u2019ve got our own Costa coffee. And everybody\u2019s there, including the scriptwriters. I see Steve here, and I\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd 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\u2019s lives right now, forget what\u2019s happening on screen. I think what you see on screen is a result of what\u2019s happening behind the cameras.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more:<\/strong><\/p>\n