For TV viewers in the UK, it’s probably hard to believe that EastEnders first hit our screens on BBC One 40 years ago this week. The Beeb’s flagship soap opera turned heads and pushed boundaries when it was first broadcast on Tuesday 19 February 1985. This was a warts-and-all take (albeit pre-watershed) on life in mid-’80s East London, replete with grit, grime and just a little glamour (if you can count shoulder pads and a lot of hairspray). The residents of the fictional borough of Walford have seen it all over the years, and audiences in their millions have lived through it all with them.
Over the course of four decades the times have changed, along with many of the faces (though not all), but one thing that has endured is the music. EastEnders has a now-classic theme tune, immediately recognisable and synonymous with the regular slanging matches, fisticuffs, births, marriages, deaths, (occasional) laughter and tears.
Its composer is Simon May, who moved onto writing for TV after a career as a pop singer-songwriter – indeed he was in the charts in 1976 with ‘The Summer of My Life’. His keen sense of pop and melody set him in fine stead as a screen composer and he has given us some cracking themes over the years, from the short-lived Eldorado and the ‘90s horse-racing drama Trainer to Howards’ Way, one of the biggest TV hits of the 1980s.
EastEnders is May’s most enduring composition, though, with its iconic drummed intro – known affectionately as the ‘Doof Doof’. Played over the final moments of every episode, it usually signals a moment of intense drama, or a cliffhanger. Originally played by Graham Broad on an electronic drumkit in 1985, it was recorded as part of the bridge section to May’s original longer version of the theme. The original recording quite literally features bells and whistles (or indeed a whistle), alongside strings, keyboards, sitar, steel drums and percussion.
May also composed and recorded a keyboard variation on his theme for the show called ‘Julia’s Theme’, named for EastEnders’ co-creator, Julia Smith. Used sparingly, but very effectively, over the years, it has been employed for sad demises, emotional goodbyes and special moments where the dramatic ‘Doof Doof’ would perhaps be a bit too much. The composer has returned to it over the years, recording variations for the departure of much-loved characters, like Peggy Mitchell (Barbara Windsor) in 2010, Pat Butcher (Pam St Clement) in 2012 and Dot Cotton (June Brown) in 2022.
In 1986 May was back in the charts with a song-version of his EastEnders theme, called ‘Anyone Can Fall in Love’. Performed by EastEnders star Anita Dobson, with lyrics by the Oscar-winning Don Black, it got to Number Two. That same year he wrote the song ‘Every Loser Wins’ for use in a storyline in the show, to be performed by cast member Nick Berry. Berry released the song and it spent three weeks at Number One in the charts. May also created a hymn version of his EastEnders theme, called ‘Glory Be To God on High’, which featured in an episode of the BBC’s Songs of Praise.
But while EastEnders has continued to hold his attention (and ours) over the years, there’s far more to May than making music for Albert Square. He is passionate about education and continues to teach, while maintaining a career as a composer. His latest project is a musical (his second); Rick! is a sequel of sorts to the classic tale of Rip Van Winkle and centres on a boy with Aspergers.
At 80 years old, May is as busy as ever, but I was delighted he could spend an hour with me to look back on 40 years of EastEnders, and share how he came up with one of the UK's most familiar pieces of music.
How does it feel to be marking 40 years of EastEnders?
When I wrote the theme 40 years ago I never for a moment thought I’d be having conversations about it 40 years later, and that the show would become the much loved and successful soap that it has. The reason for its being so loved and successful is that EastEnders has been blessed with enjoying a series of very talented and committed executive producers who have benefitted, likewise, from a fabulous team of great script writers, editors, actors and directors. But I feel extremely happy about it, and it’s something I’m obviously very proud of.
You’ve maintained a relationship with EastEnders beyond writing the theme tune in 1985. What was the most recent thing you did for the show?
Chris Clenshaw, the current executive producer (who is sadly moving on after the anniversary) got in touch and mentioned, in confidence, that EastEnders was going to have a very special episode for the Jubilee in 2022 featuring (then Prince) Charles and Camilla. It was going to be a kind of Pirandellian ‘is this really Prince Charles or is he playing the part of Prince Charles?’, because all the actors were playing their normal parts. I enjoyed creating music for the special scene that came at the end of the programme when Charles and Camilla were meeting the cast and cutting the cake. Another that was even more recent was for dear Dot Cotton, played by June Brown who passed away in real life. Chris asked me to create a special ‘Dot’s Theme’, so I took ‘Abide with Me’ as a point of departure and made it mine; in other words I completely morphed it so it was kind of a mixture of ‘Julia’s Theme’ and ‘Abide With Me’ going into the end titles.
I have enjoyed a very lovely relationship with the programme, sometimes responding to a specific brief, sometimes even being invited up for parties and celebrations. So I’ve remained in touch and feel as if I’m part of the family – after all I’m one of the very few surviving members of the original team other than actors Adam Woodyatt, Letitia Dean and Gillian Taylforth. They are the only three in the current cast who go back to 1985.
Do you recall how the job to write the EastEnders theme came about?
Prior to my first meeting with Julia Smith and Tony Holland – the creators of the show – I had worked on a couple of drama series' featuring Michael Denison, Scorpion and Cold Warrior, and always loved writing music for drama. I met Tony when I was writing the music for those series’ and we got on well and he really liked the music I was writing. So, when he and Julia were developing what was then known as E8, not EastEnders, Tony phoned me up and said, ‘I’m in the middle of creating a new and very exciting drama series for the BBC, would you like to come and meet Julia and me?’ I’ve got a very clear memory of going to BBC offices in Shepherd’s Bush and seeing a miniature model of Albert Square, with The Queen Vic pub and everything. There were photographs of the cast plastered all over the room, and Julia and Tony just wanted me to listen to their vision for the show – they talked excitedly about it and said they’d love me to have a crack at writing the main theme. So I came out of that office with a feeling of challenge and excitement.
What was the brief given to you?
It was quite clear that this new soap was going to explore new territory; it was going to be quite a dark, edgy show, breaking barriers and taking us outside of our comfort zone. I was asked to create a demo, but they didn’t go into any detail, just to create a theme. They’d talked about the characters and the kind of scripts that were going to be happening, but they didn’t give me a musical brief. So, I wrote a piece that I thought reflected the nature of E8, and it was a very dark and edgy piece of music. I recorded it on cassette and went back to the office with a Walkman and two sets of ear-phones, which they put in… I looked at their faces and I could see a glazed expression in Julia’s eyes; I thought, ‘oh my god…’ She stopped the cassette, took the cans off her ears and gave me a very stern look and said, ‘Simon, no, this is exactly the opposite of what we wanted!’ But that didn’t throw me; I’ve always been blessed with a very positive attitude to life, so I said to Julia, ‘oh, that’s really good news, because if I’ve done exactly the opposite of what you want, the brief is easy. I’ll do the opposite of what I’ve done, and it’ll be exactly what you want.’ She smiled and said, ‘we want something that contrasts with the edginess and darkness; we want a tune that brings people in from the garden or the kitchen, instantly recognisable.’
So how did you get to what we now know and ‘instantly recognise’?
When I was at school in Wiltshire, I was very lucky to sing lead parts in Mozart operas that they did each year. I’ve always absolutely adored Mozart and that has benefitted my career, because Mozart was probably the most melodic composer ever and that rubbed off on me when I was singing in Così fan tutte or The Marriage of Figaro. When I started writing music, for me the most important thing was a very strong melody and a very strong hook. So, I went back home back to my studio, put down a really tried-and-tested chord sequence (one of my favourites) and as I always do when I’m writing a theme, or a song for that matter, when I’ve got a backing track I do an overdub with a melody and my fingers just go for a walk over the keyboard. My ears, fingers and brain kind of feed off each other. For this second theme I put in the final touch at the end. Even though it’s set in a contemporary square in East London, it’s still going back to the generic DNA of a Cockney personality, so I thought, ‘what do Cockneys do? They’ve got personality and they whistle!’ So I whistled the very last hook of the theme, instead of using the keyboard. When I played the new theme on that same Walkman, I could see they were enjoying it from the word go, and when it got to the whistle at the end, instead of Julia’s glazed expression there was a broad smile and she gave me a big hug and said, ‘Simon, you’ve nailed it!’ The ‘Doof Doof’ wasn’t in it at that stage, by the way, they bought it because of the tune and the whistle. And then it was written very quickly, but the arrangement took a while.
Tell us about the arrangement; there’s lots in the mix, including a lovely string line…
I was very lucky at Dauntsey’s School in Wiltshire; it was up and coming in those days, but even when I was there all those years ago there was a very strong music department and a lovely school orchestra. So as well as learning to play the piano, I played the violin in the orchestra; so I’ve always loved strings. It’s a very important part of the arrangement, which I conveyed to the late Ian Hughes, who co-arranged the whole piece with me. The arrangement included not just the Cockney whistle, but there were steel drums tucked away, which was my nod to the Caribbean community, there was a sitar in the middle section and that reflected the Indian/Asian community. So the whole orchestration was not just a limited reflection of Cockney London, there was a recognition of the multicultural society living on Albert Square. I could see they wanted to go places that other soaps hadn’t gone, and although you’ve got Black and Asian actors in other soaps, they all followed EastEnders, which led the way. Also in terms of its storylines, with gay characters, mental health issues, social issues; in that sense EastEnders was very realistic, although within its own microcosm.
You’ve created some different versions of the theme over the years, haven’t you?
There have been lots of different versions. I did a soul version in the early ’90s, and that had a divisive reaction. There was a large section of dog owners who wrote in with deep criticism because there was no whistle at the end, and their dogs had stopped barking at it. After the soul version they returned to the original recording and then I was commissioned in 2009 to go back and do a fresh version. This is going to sound very pretentious, but the revisit was almost like going back to a listed building as an architect, keeping the façade at the front and not just knocking down the whole building and starting again. We managed to find the original MIDI performances from the 1985 recording and from those original performances we created new sampled sounds, so we were using the authentic performances. It’s a painstaking process and you’re respecting how it was, but making it more colourful and sharper. I did play around with the bass part – the real geek fans would hear it. So there were refinements, but it was certainly more colourful.
What was the impetus for the 1986 song version, ‘Anyone Can Fall in Love’?
I’m not exaggerating when I say the BBC must have forwarded over 500 letters from fans, nearly all of them from people saying ‘you must turn EastEnders into a pop song!’ They would send me lyrics, too. At that time Don Black was writing the lyrics for me for Howards’ Way and he was managing Marti Webb, so there was a lovely synergy there. I write lyrics, but I just felt that Don, who is one of the best ever, should have a crack. He wrote a lovely lyric to Howards’ Way, or ‘Always There’, and I thought I’d get two for the price of one and asked him if he’d write some lyrics for EastEnders. This may sound a bit self-deprecating, but the EastEnders tune is not a natural pop song; it’s a TV theme, so turning it into a pop song, however brilliantly Anita Dobson sung it or how thoughtful Don’s lyrics were, it was always going to sit in a challenging place for DJs on Radio 1, who didn’t take too kindly to it. I got a bit of stick for it, I have to say. One radio DJ said to me, ‘Simon, why on earth did you decide to bring out a vocal version of EastEnders?!’ And I said, ‘because I can!’ And what’s more, if you were a songwriter would you have a problem having a Number Two hit record?
You still work as a teacher, don’t you? What do your students make of your TV fame?
I’ve been very blessed in my career that I’ve remained a teacher as well as enjoying my main job as a composer. For many years I’ve worked at a school near to where we live, and I teach Aspergers kids one day a week. Not so long ago one of my kids looked a bit worried and said to me, ‘Simon, hadn’t you better go now?’ I asked why and he said, ‘you’ll be late for EastEnders.’ I asked what he meant, and he was under the delightful impression that every time EastEnders was shown, I had to go and play the theme! Who knows, with the live show this week, wouldn’t it be ironic if I actually did?
EastEnders celebrates its 40th anniversary each night this week, starting tonight (Monday 17 February) and culminating in a special live episode on Thursday 20 February. It will be available to watch on BBC One and iPlayer in the UK.
Simon May’s autobiography ‘Doof Doof – My Life in Music’ and an accompanying album of career highlights are available now.
