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Tony Jordan

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Tony Jordan is a British television writer. For many years, he was lead writer and story consultant for BBC One soap opera EastEnders. Jordan had written for the programme since 1989, and is considered to be an 'elder statesman' of the show, for which he has written over 250 episodes as of 2006.

Biography

Beginning his career as a market stallholder — an experience which later directly fed into his writing for EastEnders, which is set around such a market — Jordan only began writing at the age of thirty-two. He had left school with no qualifications. For his work in EastEnders, he is particularly known for creating the Slater family along with then producer, John Yorke. Amongst significant episodes he scripted are those featuring the deaths of Arthur Fowler and Ethel Skinner; the "Sharongate" storyline; and more recently Kat's revelation to Zoe that she was her mother, and the Andy-Kat-Alfie love triangle. He was the first writer to do EastEnders when it began airing three times a week, when the siege at the Queen Vic took place in in 1994. He continued to work on EastEnders through a period which saw a reversal in its hitherto declining fortunes, with the programme winning the Most Popular Soap category at the National Television Awards in 2005. He wrote the first two episodes (aired October 24th & 25th 2005) for the return of the characters of Phil and Grant Mitchell, popular characters he had originally helped to create back in 1989.

While on staff at EastEnders Jordan undertook a number of freelance projects. In early 2004, he was one of the team responsible for the scripts for BBC One con artist drama Hustle. He also co-created the time travel / police drama Life on Mars, which began in 2006.

However, as well as these notable successes there have also been failures. In the early 1990s, Jordan was one of the scrpitwriters responsible for the ill fated BBC soap opera, Eldorado (TV series).

In 2004, it was announced that he was working with the television division of 19 Entertainment, the company owned by Simon Fuller, to develop a gritty American soap similar in style to EastEnders.

In January 2007 Jordan's EastEnders departure was announced. He plans to concentrate on running his own new production company, Red Planet, backed by leading independent producer Kudos Film & Television. HolbyBlue, a new BBC One police drama, spun-off from the channel's successful medical drama Holby City debuted in May 2007.

Jordan is in the middle of creating a new Teen Drama for the BBC, Dirty Lives of Rich Teens, Jordan is hoping to base the show on The OC; it is rumoured to be being fronted by Lacey Turner. The show will be based around a group of five 17-18 year old friends living in Chelsea, each with a dark secret. It is set to air in Autumn, with an 8 episode first series.

On 30 May, 2007, Jordan was honoured for his work on EastEnders at the British Soap Awards which were televised on ITV1.

On 14 November 2007, it was announced that Jordan would be returning to EastEnders less than twelve months after quitting. Tony created new itv1 interlinked soap Moving wallpaper/ Echo beach.

Jordan wrote the script for Dot Branning's moving single-handed episode broadcast on 31 January 2008 on BBC1.

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Last updated on Friday February 15, 2008 at 14:26:56 PST (GMT -0800)
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