During the affair storyline between Stacey Slater and Max Branning, Jo Joyner (who plays Max's wife Tanya) did not read any parts of the EastEnders scripts other than her own, as she felt her acting was improved by not knowing what Max did behind Tanya's back, and because she felt that she could better justify to herself why Tanya would not suspect Max of cheating if she in reality did not know what he was getting up to.
The child abuse storyline with Kat Slater and her uncle Harry saw calls to the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) go up by 60%. The chief executive of the NSPCC praised the storyline for covering the subject in a direct and sensitive way, coming to the conclusion that people were more likely to report any issues relating to child protection because of it.
Most of Dot Cotton's clothes come from charity shops and she always wears the same dress every Christmas Day. It is the oldest item in the wardrobe department and it is almost as old as the soap.
Danniella Westbrook (Samantha Mitchell) has revealed that she became so affected by cocaine in 1995 that she would continuously mess up her lines, had to do take after take, was constantly late and needed prompts, and spontaneously fell asleep, once even passing out while she stood at the top of the Queen Vic stairs during filming, and was only saved from harming herself by Ross Kemp (Grant Mitchell) who caught her in his arms.