Larry Swaps East End for North East

ATV Network /ATV Productions FactualEastEnders‘ baddie Archie Mitchell has swapped the streets of Walford for the pavements of Hartlepool in a new television documentary. The soap villain’s alter-ego, actor Larry Lamb, has been reportedly spotted in the North East recording parts of the new BBC programme on unemployment.
 
The Hartlepool Mail reports that Lamb – who will leave BBC One screens as Archie for the final time later this month – stopped to sign autographs and posed for photographs with fans of the long running London-set soap opera. Speaking to the newspaper one fan commented:
 
“I can’t believe I have just met Archie from EastEnders. He was just so nice.”
 
The documentary follows recent probes into how the unemployed are treated in Britain. Recently Channel 4 aired such a programme, but proved to be a weak investigation, over looking hundreds of thousands of complaints into the ‘Labour favourite’ A4e ‘program’ which is supposed to help people back to work. Instead producers opted to screen the ‘stereotypical’ unemployed.
ATV Network also earlier this year went undercover into A4e in the North East and was left stunned by the poor facilities and lack of data protection.
Craig, who was one of our undercover hired hands to report on how job-seekers are treated, comments: “Some items have been passed to authorities who seem little interested to take action against the friends of Labour…”
The BBC have now decided to look into the lives of job seekers and the issues they face in several locations across the UK.
 
Recent figures showed that the Teesside town of Hartlepool was one of the highest places in the country for unemployment with a high rate of people on the Jobseekers Allowance benefit scheme.
 
Larry’s Hartlepool scenes include shopping in the local ASDA supermarket. Colin Ager, duty manager at Asda, told The Hartlepool Mail:
 
“We were notified that Larry Lamb would be coming into our store, and we were just told to act as naturally as possible… …He was just here to do a bit of shopping.”

The BBC have as yet no comment to make on the programme, however we hope its a little more informed and interesting than the recent Channel 4 attempt.
 
While Larry Lamb leaves EastEnders at Christmas, he continues to star in BBC Three’s sitcom, Gavin and Stacey. The BBC are also celebrating the life and times of Archie, the baddie who married Peggy [Barbara Windsor, both pictured right] and caused nothing but hurt to those around him in Albert Square, in a special documentary. EastEnders: The Sins Of Archie Michell airs on BBC Three, Saturday 26th December at 8.05pm.
A4e have given ATV “no comment” from our undercover experience at the Gateshead centre. ATV intend to publish the full report early next year.