'Enders director reveals live ep challenges

EastEnders' live episode director Clive Arnold has revealed that the soap's team faced many challenges when planning the special instalment.

Speaking in an interview with DS, Arnold explained that most of the problems stemmed from the aim to keep the 25th anniversary edition as story-driven as possible.

Tonight's episode will feature the long-awaited reveal of which character killed Archie Mitchell and it is also expected to bring other story arcs to a climax.

Arnold explained: "I always thought the most important thing was for [lead show writer] Simon [Ashdown] to write the story without worrying that it was going to be live and then for us to see what problems that brought as far as the live format was concerned. We have tried to resolve any problems without affecting the story."

He continued: "The script had to be timed and early on there were people walking around Elstree with stopwatches timing how long it took to walk from area to area.

"If we couldn't get an actor from one studio to another or from a studio to the Square, it wouldn't work on the night. In the first draft, there were quite a lot of problems with logistics, so Simon did a fantastic job of reordering."

Arnold added that the cast and crew will be expected to simply "carry on" if there are any camera wobbles or line fluffs on the night.

EastEnders Live airs tonight at 8pm on BBC One.

> Click here to read Part 1 of our interview with Clive Arnold
> Click here to read Part 2 of our interview with Clive Arnold