Thursday, August 19, 1999 Published at 09:50 GMT 10:50 UK
BBC shrugs off EastEnders 'leak'
The BBC says The Sun's dossier contains ideas, not plots
The BBC has played down a newspaper's claims that the following year's EastEnders plots have been leaked to it.
The Sun claims it has a 400-page dossier containing future storylines for the soap's characters, such as Phil Mitchell and Pauline Fowler, played by Steve McFadden and Wendy Richard.
The paper's report hints at some of the possible storylines - but a BBC spokeswoman said the document was likely to be merely a list of possible ideas for the show.
She said: "At this stage we're not doing anything about it. We need to establish what the document is. If it's a document full of ideas for possible storylines, that doesn't bother us because they can be changed.
"We simply don't talk about confirmed storylines that far in advance. We do have brain-storming sessions, like any other programme, in which we talk about introducing new characters and it sounds like it could be from that."
The Sun is holding a phone poll for readers to decide if it should return the document to the BBC, and the spokeswoman said the corporation would wait for the outcome of the poll before deciding what action to take.
She added: "We're pretty sure that viewers will agree that we should have the document back. They don't want their viewing spoiled."
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