Former Eastenders write has criticised the quality of the show and believes that the BBC’s plan to move to five weekly episodes of the soap opera is taking things a step too far.

Speaking to Stage, Tony Jordan stated:

“Was it a better show when it was twice a week? Absolutely - without a shadow of a doubt.

“The reason for that is because they were shooting just an hour’s worth of television and had time to spend on each individual episode.

“If you are producing two-and-a-half hours a week television it’s basically a movie a week and some things suffer for that.

“EastEnders is going through the doldrums a little bit lately, but the one thing about EastEnders is that it will always come back because there is a great team of people working in it.”