Fire to mark Ender the Queen Vic!

EastEnders Queen Vic Picture: Getty — Fire to mark Ender the Queen Vic! (Image credit: BBC)

EastEnders' famous pub the Queen Vic will be destroyed by fire later this year, TV bosses have confirmed. The Albert Square landmark - the scene of so many celebrations, rows and recriminations - will be burned to the ground after being the BBC One soap's hub for a quarter of a century. Walford chiefs have not revealed whether anyone will die in the blaze, although several characters are set to leave the soap. Veteran Barbara Windsor is bowing out of the show after 16 years playing former Vic landlady Peggy Mitchell. In April, it was announced that six characters are being written out, including mechanic Minty Peterson, played by Cliff Parisi, taxi driver Charlie Slater (Derek Martin) and student Libby Fox (Belinda Owusu). The dramatic scenes will spell the end of the current pub set ahead of the soap's move to high definition in the autumn. An EastEnders spokeswoman confirmed the pub will be destroyed by a blaze. The explosive storyline comes in a big year for British soaps. EastEnders bosses marked 25 years of the programme with a live episode in February, and Coronation Street is preparing to celebrate its own 50th anniversary milestone in December. The Queen Vic has been the scene of many memorable moments during EastEnders' quarter-century. Den Watts famously handed divorce papers to wife Angie in the Vic in 1986. Grant Mitchell exposed his brother Phil's affair with Sharon to stunned punters in 1994, and Archie Mitchell was bludgeoned to death with a bust of the Queen Victoria in the pub last Christmas. Click here to watch whatsontv.co.uk's weekly soaps video preview, the Soap Scoop

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Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.