EastEnders fans were shocked in February as the BBC soap announced its plans to kill off Lucy Beale in a long-running mystery plotline. After a two-month wait, viewers are about to see the story unfold for themselves as the drama begins in the show's emotional Easter episodes.

To promote the story, EastEnders' executive producer Dominic Treadwell-Collins this week revealed lots of new gossip about what's to come at a press Q&A session in London. Read on to find out what he had to say!

What can we expect from next week's episodes?
"Over the next few days, you're going to see the Beales really shine. Adam Woodyatt, Laurie Brett, Ben Hardy, Di Parish and Jac Jossa are giving some of the most amazing performances you've ever seen. I think Adam gives the performance of a lifetime.

"This is a very, very personal story to everybody at EastEnders. We've had cameramen who've been there for 25 years sobbing behind the cameras as we've been recording. Everyone has brought their own little bit of grief to the show as we're working through it.

"Thursday's episode next week will also be a special episode, as it's just set in the Beale house. We only go outside right at the end of the episode, so the tension builds."

How will this be different to other soap whodunits that we've seen?
"This comes from the heart. As you'll see in the episodes, it's all based on truth, reality and grief. When we first talked about the storyline, we spoke about Lucy dying and her body being found on Walford Common. We decided that the story would be about grief at first, but then slowly get closer and closer, until the focus goes onto the Square and the Beales suddenly realising that actually the killer is amongst them.

"There's going to be a lot of twists and turns in the storyline. We're going to use this storyline to find out a lot about every single character on the Square. We're also going to find out a lot more about Lucy after she's died.

"The story is going to run and run, but I think sometimes soap whodunits can be too intelligent and not come from the heart. The identity of the killer is known by myself and three other people on the team. When it's revealed, we don't want people to say, 'Oh that was clever, I never guessed that'. We want people to say, 'Oh, that makes sense, that's upsetting and it's very clever'. The story is very much based on truth."

What impact will the grief of the Beale family have?
"Grief changes people and it changes relationships. For example, it's going to change Ian and Phil's relationship. They're the biggest enemies in the world, but in scenes coming up, Phil Mitchell hugs a crying Ian Beale and starts to cry himself."


How long have you been planning the story for?
"When I came back to EastEnders, the first three ideas I mentioned were the introduction of the Carters, Carol's cancer and Lucy's death. [Story producer] Alex Lamb, [script producer] Manpreet Dosanjh, [senior producer] Sharon Batten and the team of writers and directors all jumped on it.

"It's been fun to plot a murder properly on a big scale, and also to go back to the first family in the Square. Ian Beale and Adam Woodyatt are so wonderful. To have something affecting Ian so massively in the lead-up to the 30th anniversary next year was part of the thinking as well, and hopefully it's paying off."

Usually we see soap characters' lives for ourselves. Is it a gamble to keep back so many secrets about Lucy until after her death?
"That's the fun - the fun is seeing the secrets revealed. Viewers are so much more sophisticated now and it would have been a little bit naff to see everyone suddenly acting suspiciously, or Lucy suddenly upsetting everybody on the Square for no reason. A death like this is a shock to a family, and that's what we want it to feel like for the audience as well.

"We've spent a lot of time plotting it cleverly and we know where we're going with it. We're not making it up as we go along, and that's important. There are lots of clever people working on the show."

You also have a lot of experience with murder stories…
"Yes, my first job was coming up with ways for people to die on Midsomer Murders! I've always loved a good old murder mystery. When I was little, I also read every Agatha Christie book and wrote my own little murder mysteries. In the end, my English teacher made me stand up in front of my English class and said, 'You're never going to amount to anything because all you read is Agatha Christie!'

"In our case, it's a way of exploring every character. For our writers and story team, it's an opportunity to twist and play with your audience. We've seen great murder mysteries with Broadchurch and The Killing, but with a soap, you get to do it better because we're on all the time and we've got a longer time to tell the story."


What role will the police play?
"We don't want the police to come across as incompetent soap police. If the police were really good, we'd have no story to tell and there'd be nothing to watch, but as time goes on, some of the police are changed and some people are taken off the case.

"We also try to characterise each police officer, so they're not just generic fact-givers. They're all characters in their own right and they've got loads of stories running through as well."

How long will the story run for?
"It's going to run into next year and into the 30th anniversary, but there are some very, very big curveballs which will be thrown at the audience between now and then. In the run-up towards Christmas time, there's going to be a big twist that will make everyone gasp. That's all I'm going to say!"

Is it true that there's been censored scripts to protect the secrecy?
"Yes, the show is about secrets and twists. I want to surprise the audience. Later in the year, we're going to have a clever bit of trickery - gimmickry maybe! 'Gimmickry' is probably putting it down, but we're going to do something to make sure that the audience and the press don't have a clue who it is."


Overnight ratings for the soaps are currently in decline. Would you say they're struggling?
"I don't think everyone's struggling - I think everyone's watching television in a different way. A lot of our EastEnders viewers watch the show online on iPlayer, so that doesn't worry me. I hope that this story will bring back some old viewers and bring in some new ones."

Is it frustrating to have murders coming up in Coronation Street and Hollyoaks at similar times, or do you feel that yours is different?
"I think we're doing it forensically and we're exploring the minutiae. We're also doing grief first - it's not just a silly death. That's not to say that the other deaths are pointless, but in our case it's about death in the family because EastEnders is about families.

"I'm sure the other soap stories are going to be fantastic as well, but with Coronation Street's Tina, I know that she doesn't really have any family on the Street so it's quite an isolated murder, whereas Lucy's is about the death of someone's daughter and someone's sister.

"We always try to make everything about family and about relationships, and then slowly it turns into a mystery - but it's not a heightened mystery. It's very real and we keep checking ourselves all the way along to make sure that it's not melodramatic and to find the truth in each moment."

Will Lucy's fall in Max's office be mentioned again?
"Yes - we need stuff to happen now, so obviously we want the police to go, 'Ah! There's a bit of blood in the portakabin'. We as an audience know it was an accident, but that's a little red herring and a clue there."

As we saw with Archie's murder, will this story lead to the killer being revealed in a live episode and the actor only told moments before?
"No! It's been done. We don't do cover versions of greatest hits. We want new songs. Keeping it a secret is going to be difficult, but as I mentioned earlier, we have a plan. Really good storytelling is our trick, to be honest. When I said earlier that we have a trick planned, that's it - really good storytelling."