Peggy Mitchell
Peggy Mitchell is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders. Peggy was initially played by Jo Warne when she first appeared in the episode broadcast on 30 April 1991, featuring in 10 episodes. Peggy was reintroduced in 1994, recast to Barbara Windsor, who made her first appearance in the episode broadcast on 7 November 1994. Peggy became a regular character, and Windsor played the role until she was forced to take a long break due to poor health and departed on 23 May 2003. She returned for two episodes broadcast on 16 and 17 September 2004, before returning as a regular character on 8 September 2005. Windsor announced in October 2009 that she would be leaving the show and departed on 10 September 2010. Windsor returned to the show for guest appearances on 20 September 2013, 25 September 2014, 17 February 2015 and 15 January 2016. She then appeared in six episodes between 9 and 17 May 2016, where the character was killed off. Her voice is last heard in the following episode, on 19 May 2016. Peggy's funeral aired on 4 July 2016. An archived recording of her voice was heard on 25 January 2022. On 26 July 2022, it was announced that Peggy would feature in a flashback episode set in 1979, alongside her husband Eric and their children Phil, Grant and Sam. Jaime Winstone played the role of Peggy for this special episode, which aired on 5 September 2022. She returned again in 2025 to appear as part of a mental health storyline for Phil and she made a guest appearance on 13 February.
Peggy is fiercely protective of her family and the Mitchell name, and is famous for her catchphrase "Get outta my pub!", used when ejecting people from The Queen Victoria during her reign as the landlady. Her storylines have included a series of failed romances, most notably a non-lasting marriage with established character Frank Butcher and then a short-lived wedding to her brother-in-law Archie Mitchell. She has also been central to several plotlines revolving around health issues; launching a hate campaign against the HIV positive character Mark Fowler before later going on to make amends with him when she is later diagnosed with breast cancer, which she recovers from; a longstanding feud with daughter-in-law Sharon Watts ; an on-off rivalry and companionship with her frenemy Pat Evans ; and clashing with many villains such as Frank's troublesome daughter Janine Butcher and gangland boss Johnny Allen. It was then Peggy's final storyline saw her cancer return in May 2016, which ultimately leads to the character being killed-off when she dies by suicide.
Creation
Peggy was introduced as a guest character in April 1991, by executive producer Michael Ferguson. The character was brought in as the mother of the already established Mitchell clan: Phil, Grant and Sam. Specifically, she played a key role in a storyline about the elopement of her daughter Sam with Ricky Butcher. Peggy was played by actress Jo Warne for a period of three months, but was written out upon the completion of the storyline. Two other actresses had been cast in the part before Warne: the first quit before she could film any scenes, and the second, Frances Cuka, filmed eight episodes, though all of her scenes were scrapped before broadcast.The character did not make another appearance until 7 November 1994, when she was reintroduced by series producer Barbara Emile as a regular character. The actress was recast, the role being taken over by Barbara Windsor, already well known to viewers as a comic actress, notably appearing in the long-running Carry On films. Scott Matthewman of The Stage commented on the recast in 2006: "Quite the biggest – and most inexplicable – transformation is that of Peggy Mitchell in EastEnders. While Barbara Windsor has dominated the role...first appearing in , the character had appeared briefly years earlier, played by Jo Warne, a lady who physically is as different from our Babs as it's possible to get."
Steve McFadden and Ross Kemp had attempted to persuade EastEnders writer Tony Jordan to develop a spin-off for their characters, which would star Windsor as Peggy. The idea never advanced beyond informal discussions, but when the producers decided to reintroduce Peggy, McFadden and Kemp suggested Windsor play her. Windsor had previously expressed a desire to join the cast of EastEnders. Chat show host Chris Evans of Channel 4's The Big Breakfast made a public broadcast instructing viewers to fax or phone the BBC with pleas for Windsor's instatement. However, Windsor was already in negotiations with the BBC about appearing in the serial. June Deitch, the EastEnders casting director, had met with Windsor to discuss the matter, and was convinced when Windsor declared that she would "like to play my own age for a change". At the time, the producers had already thought about reintroducing Peggy, and Windsor was cast despite originally being considered too "well-known". Windsor has spoken of her "terrified" reaction to being asked to audition, commenting: "I had the weekend to prepare and I cried all the time. I didn't know how to do soap acting. I was so used to using my hands, my eyes." She auditioned with two scenes, one emotion, one "jolly" which Windsor has described as "agony", explaining: "I was afraid of playing Barbara Windsor, so when I had to laugh I went 'huh, huh'. Anything rather than 'tee, hee, hee'." In an interview with the Walford Gazette, a US-based newspaper dedicated to EastEnders, Windsor commented on her casting: "I was thrilled, I could rest my tired bones working on a marvelous television show that I deeply respected. I was very excited about the possibility playing this feisty lady who would come in and shake up her two boys' lives."
Windsor has been described as the biggest "name" that EastEnders has ever added to its cast, and her arrival came at a time in the show's history that has been branded its "worst creative period". Mark Lawson for The Independent wrote that Windsor's casting was intended to combat low ratings, commenting: "The Windsor initiative seems to be a direct response to suggestions that EastEnders has become too gloomy: a view heavily advanced by Roy Hattersley, former deputy leader of the Labour Party, and fan of the BBC series' rival on ITV, Coronation Street. Certainly, Miss Windsor has been associated throughout her career with the lighter touch." According to Windsor, 27 million viewers watched her first appearance as Peggy on-screen. Mark Lawson for The Daily Telegraph has stated that five million extra viewers watched her first scenes, reporting that initially: "The critics said that she lacked the 'brassiness and vulnerability' for soap acting and that, stripped of her bubbly image, 'nothing much of interest was revealed'. Ironically, viewers complained that she was too upmarket." Windsor has commented of the impact of her pre-existing celebrity status:
Characterisation
Hilary Kingsley, author of The EastEnders Handbook, has described Peggy as tough, with a "knack for getting her own way". She adds, "Peggy likes to think she looks much younger . She's flash, fast-talking and nobody's fool. She has always done things her own way, and heaven help anyone who crosses her, though her bark's usually worse than her bite."When Windsor took over the role in 1994, she was unhappy with the way Peggy was being scripted. She has commented, "a few things weren't quite right about Peggy at the beginning. On a purely superficial level, the wig didn't fit right. And the clothes weren't right either. They appeared too downmarket. I was particularly worried about how the character was viewed by the producer and writers. I saw her as much ballsier than they did. I think they envisioned Peggy as this rather sad, vulnerable lady who spent all her time worrying about her children." However, early in 1995, EastEnders acquired a new executive producer, Corinne Hollingworth, who shared Windsor's vision of Peggy. It was Hollingworth who decided that Peggy would be a central character, the new landlady of The Queen Victoria public house, one of the soap's main focal points. Hollingworth stated that Peggy was "not going to be allowed to just sit in some flat polishing her nails". Windsor has said: "It was like a dream. let me go out with the costume designer and choose Peggy's wardrobe, which needed to be a lot more flash and upmarket. Corinne and I worked on getting Peggy right and I finally began to believe...".
Windsor has described Peggy as "from the old school, the generation which doesn't put up with rubbish from anybody...She can get through practically anything because she's tough, tough, tough." The character has been classified by Rupert Smith, author of EastEnders: 20 Years in Albert Square, as a matriarch, assuming "papal infallibility. Whatever anybody does — particularly her own children — she knows better." She has also been branded a "battleaxe" by Dave West of entertainment website Digital Spy, and someone who "wears her heart on her sleeve" by Windsor. Family-orientated, Windsor adds that: " loves her family with a passion. Her worst qualities are that she's blinkered, sometimes wrongly passionate about her family."
It has been speculated that Windsor based Peggy on Violet Kray, mother of the infamous East End gangsters, the Kray twins; however Windsor has denied this. Instead, she claims that Peggy is based on women she has seen in East End pubs and her own mother: "women whose hair is great and their outfits are more Walthamstow market, they get it wrong slightly...Some things I've done with Peggy is from my Mum. She was one of those East End snobs. I drew on all of those experiences." In a 2009 radio interview with Dale Winton, Windsor said three people have influenced her portrayal of Peggy: Violet Kray, her own mother, and the actor Mike Reid, who played her on-screen husband Frank Butcher.