A Conservative MP has said that the depiction of Milton Keynes as a “slum” in a recent episode of EastEnders was “completely out of order”.
In Monday’s episode of the BBC soap opera, the character of Bianca Jackson (Patsy Palmer) returned for the first time since 2019, being shown in her new home in the Buckinghamshire city.
Some scenes showed characters “eating out of bins” and throwing a brick through a window, leading some residents to complain about the negative portrayal of the place.
And now, Ben Everitt, the Conservative MP for Milton Keynes North, has chimed in, saying that he would be contacting the producers of the show to highlight his displeasure.
Speaking to BBC Three Counties Radio, he said: “Like every city we got parts that aren’t as good as the others, but the characterisation is completely out of order.”
He went on to state that he would request that the writers also go out of their way to find a positive representation of the town as well. “I am quite positive about Milton Keynes and I want them to show the good side as well,” he added.
“It’s fiction, it’s a soap opera, it’s just the telly… I’m just not happy it’s Milton Keynes.”
The city’s tourism organisation Destination Milton Keynes also commented on the matter: “We’ll leave it up to a fictional soap opera to choose how they want to depict Milton Keynes.”
“But we know it to be a thriving, multi-cultural community with more than 6,000 acres of free green spaces for residents and visitors to enjoy and with a booming visitor economy worth over £230m a year.”
Last September, Charli XCX hailed the EastEnders writers for naming a baby after her on the show, writing: “Shout out my gays in the writers room!”
In the show, Lily Slater (Lillia Turner) and Ricky Mitchell (Frankie Day) named their baby Charli, causing Lily’s mum Stacey to assume it was a reference to her late uncle Charlie, only to be corrected that it was in fact after the popstar.
In other EastEnders-music crossovers, The Libertines’ Pete Doherty once claimed that he had been offered a role in the soap, something he claimed he later felt “disappointed” that he had turned down.
He said: “There are a few things that have fallen through over the years that I was a bit disappointed about – opportunities that came up that I didn’t take.”
“I was going to get a part in EastEnders at one point. It was around this time that the Libertines re-formed too.”
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