EastEnders
"EastEnders" is often filmed on location, away from the studios in Borehamwood. Sometimes an entire quartet is filmed on location, which has a practical function and are the result of "EastEnders" making a "double bank", when an extra week's worth of episodes are recorded at the same time as the regular schedule, enabling the production of the programme to stop for a two-week break at Christmas. These episodes often air in late June or early July and again in late October or early November. The first time this happened was in December 1985 when Pauline (Wendy Richard) and Arthur Fowler (Bill Treacher) travelled to the Southend-on-Sea to find their son Mark, who had run away from home. In 1986, "EastEnders" filmed overseas for the first time, in Venice, and this was also the first time it was not filmed on videotape, as a union rule at the time prevented producers taking a video crew abroad and a film crew had to be used instead. In 2011, it was reported that eight per cent of the series is filmed on location.
Gary Hailes
In 1987, Hailes' character Barry Clark caused a great deal of controversy after "EastEnders" screened the first male-to-male kiss on a UK, prime time soap. The kiss prompted a multitude of complaints from angry viewers and a hostile backlash from the right wing press. Despite the fact that Hailes is heterosexual, he suffered from severe homophobia because of the homosexual role he played in "EastEnders". He was attacked several times by members of the public who could not separate fact from fiction, which included being assaulted in a supermarket by a disapproving woman and strangled by a man at a petrol station. Even after he left the show he lost a job as a children's television presenter because of the so-called "gay tag".