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BBC Eastenders

BBC Trust calls for cast shake-up in disproportionally white EastEnders

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By John Glenday, Reporter

June 24, 2014 | 2 min read

The BBC Trust has waded into a row over the ethnic make-up of the cast of EastEnders following publication of research which shows there are twice as many white cast members as in the population at large in the real East End.

This discrepancy has led to calls for the long-running soap to display a more ‘authentic portrayal’ of life in the area of the city it purports to represent by reflecting the population changes currently in effect.

Diane Coyle, acting head of the BBC Trust, said: “Earlier this year, our Audience Council for England gave a presentation to the Trust which compared the population of Walthamstow in East London with Walford – the fictional home of EastEnders.

“The cast of EastEnders is one of the most diverse on British television. So it was interesting to see that even so it differs from the real East End population.”

Those figures showed that there were almost twice as many white people on set than their share of the population in the borough of Walthamstow, upon which the show is loosely based. Cast members were also younger on average and more likely to have been born in the UK.

Waltham Forest, the London borough in which Walthamstow is located, was composed of 38 per cent white British or Irish residents in the last census.

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