Martin Kemp has lifted the lid on his return to the EastEnders revamped set after playing the much-loved character Steve Owen in the 90s.
The 60-year-old former Spandau Ballet star told Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield on This Morning how he decided to revisit the revamped BBC before an appearance on The One Show.
He said: “You don’t know what to say, because it is absolutely amazing. It’s built out of bricks and mortar. When I was there it was all plastic bricks flapping around in the wind.”
He admitted that the set, which was built in 1984 and only intended to last for two years, was no longer fit for purpose by the time he debuted as his character Steve Owen in the late 1990s.
He continued: “Once I was there in a scene with Dot and a guy had to come on and staple it back on - the bricks.
“It’s a weird one, because you go there and say, ‘This is so great, it’s brilliant, it looks exactly the same’, which is what they want.”
The back-to-basics environment at Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire apparently hadn't been great at keeping the actors warm, leading to some days when he had to resist shivering on screen.
Martin then joked on This Morning: “I was invited to go down and do something for the One Show, so I went down there and did that, but it was a great excuse, because the last time I left that, I think they were glad to see the back of me.”
Many of Albert Square's most iconic landmarks have been recreated for the new set, including the Queen Vic pub, Mitchell brothers' mechanics garage, the Beale's fish and chip shop and Ruby Allen's night club.
The new £86.7 million EastEnders set gives producers much more scope to film blockbuster movie-style scenes, with longer stretches of road, unlike the old set, which was marred by short streets.
Director Richard Lynn recently spoke about how the ambitious chase scene which will work into the looming comeuppance of Gray Atkins only would have been possible in this new filming space for EastEnders.
“Chase scenes on the old lot would inevitably have gone in one direction only, because there were so many dead ends,” he explained.
“There is much more flexibility now – more places for the goodies to hide and the baddies to come together. I'd really like to do a foot chase in the alleys or back gardens.”
