Louise Berridge is a British historical fiction writer. She was previously a television producer and script editor, her most famous post being the executive producer of BBC's '' EastEnders'' between 2002 to 2004. During her tenure, the long-running soap opera received heavy media criticism and ratings slumped to just over 6 million viewers.
Early life
Berridge read English at St Anne's College, Oxford. She worked first as a teacher before moving into the television industry.
Boon
Boon may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Boon (game), a trick-taking card game
* ''Boon'' (novel), a 1915 satirical work by H. G. Wells
* ''Boon'' (TV series), a British television series starring Michael Elphick
* The Ultimate Boo ...
'', then moved to Granada Television to work on the medical drama '' Medics''. Her big break came in 1993 when she became the series script editor for
BBC1
BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...
soap opera '' EastEnders'', later going on to become the series story editor, where she worked on the highly successful storyline " Sharongate".
In 1995, she left the popular soap to become a producer. She started as a producer with
video
Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) syst ...
drama, doing a series of ''Medics'', followed by two series of '' Staying Alive'', and then moved to film drama. Her credits include ''
Messiah
In Abrahamic religions, a messiah or messias (; ,
; ,
; ) is a saviour or liberator of a group of people. The concepts of '' mashiach'', messianism, and of a Messianic Age originated in Judaism, and in the Hebrew Bible, in which a ''mashiach ...
Wuthering Heights
''Wuthering Heights'' is an 1847 novel by Emily Brontë, initially published under her pen name Ellis Bell. It concerns two families of the landed gentry living on the West Yorkshire moors, the Earnshaws and the Lintons, and their turbulent re ...
''.
''EastEnders''
In January 2002, Berridge returned to ''EastEnders'' when she was appointed Series Producer of the show, and four months later she was promoted to Executive Producer. During her time there, she introduced characters, such as
Alfie Moon
Alfie Moon is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera ''EastEnders'', played by Shane Richie. He made his first appearance on 21 November 2002, and left on 25 December 2005. He returned to ''EastEnders'' on 21 September 2010, following th ...
Jane Beale
Lesley Jane Beale (also Clarke and Collins) is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera, ''EastEnders'', played by Laurie Brett. She made her first appearance on 22 June 2004. Brett took maternity leave in 2011 and departed on 19 May.
Sh ...
,
Stacey Slater
Stacey Slater (also Branning and Fowler) is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera ''EastEnders'', portrayed by Lacey Turner. She first appears in episode 2826, originally broadcast on 1 November 2004. The character is introduced as a fe ...
and the critically panned Indian Ferreira family. She axed several long standing characters including
Mark Fowler
Mark Fowler is a fictional character in the BBC soap opera ''EastEnders''. Mark, an original regular character when the series started in February 1985, became a semi-regular after his original portrayer David Scarboro was written out of the ...
and Roy Evans.
Berridge was responsible for some ratings success stories, such as the Alfie/ Kat love storyline,
Janine Butcher
Janine Carter (also Butcher, Evans and Malloy) is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera '' EastEnders'', introduced in 1989. The character was played by Rebecca Michael from 1989 to 1993, Alexia Demetriou from 1993 to 1996, and Charlie ...
leaving the show and getting her comeuppance, Jamie Mitchell's death and the return of one of the greatest soap icons, "Dirty"
Den Watts
Dennis "Den" Watts is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera ''EastEnders'', played by actor Leslie Grantham. He became well known for his tabloid nickname, "Dirty Den".
Den was the original landlord of The Queen Victoria public house fr ...
who had been presumed dead for fourteen years. His return in late 2003 was watched by over 16 million viewers, putting ''EastEnders'' back at number one in the rating war with the ITV's rival soap '' Coronation Street''. However, other storylines, such as a storyline about a kidney transplant involving the Ferrieras, were not well received, and although Den Watts' return proved to be a ratings success, the British press branded the plot unrealistic and felt that it questioned the show's credibility. A severe press backlash followed after Den's actor, Leslie Grantham, was outed in an internet sex scandal, which coincided with a swift decline in viewer ratings.
On 21 September 2004, Berridge quit as executive producer of ''EastEnders'' following continued criticism of the show. The same day the programme received its lowest ever ratings at that time (6.2 million) when ITV scheduled an hour-long episode of its rival soap, ''
Emmerdale
''Emmerdale'' (known as ''Emmerdale Farm'' until 1989) is a British soap opera that is broadcast on ITV1. The show is set in Emmerdale (known as Beckindale until 1994), a fictional village in the Yorkshire Dales. Created by Kevin Laffan, ...
'', against it. ''Emmerdale'' was watched by 8.1 million people. Her immediate superior,
Mal Young
Mal Young (born 26 January 1957) is a British television producer, screenwriter and executive producer.
Career
Mersey TV
Young began his career in graphic design. At age 27 he began working in television, on the Channel 4 soap opera '' Brook ...
(at the time BBC Controller of Continuing Drama Series), said Berridge "will now be involved in a major new drama project."
Writing career
Berridge writes full-time as A.L. Berridge ''Honour and the Sword'' was her first novel, reflecting a lifelong passion for history. The first of 'Chevalier' series following the fictional life and adventures of André de Roland in seventeenth century France, it was published by
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a British publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.Sunday Times bestseller. A sequel, ''In the Name of the King'', was published August 2011.
Her latest novel, ''Into the Valley of Death'', begins a second series featuring Victorian military hero Harry Ryder. It is set in the
Crimean War
The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia.
Geopolitical causes of the war included the ...
, and follows Ryder through the battles of Alma and
Inkerman
Inkerman ( uk, Інкерман, russian: Инкерман, crh, İnkerman) is a city in the Crimean peninsula. It is '' de facto'' within the federal city of Sevastopol within the Russian Federation, but '' de jure'' within Ukraine. It li ...
Balaklava
Balaklava ( uk, Балаклáва, russian: Балаклáва, crh, Balıqlava, ) is a settlement on the Crimean Peninsula and part of the city of Sevastopol. It is an administrative center of Balaklava Raion that used to be part of the Cri ...