User:Kelvin 101/Dot's Story

"Dot's Story" is a spin-off episode of the British television soap opera EastEnders, broadcast on BBC One on 2 January 2003.

Plot
Dot reflects on when she was just a little girl and when she was evacuated to Wales at the start of World War II. How she met her surrogate parents Gwen and Will and how their relationship developed into them treating her as their actual daughter rather than a evacuee. Eventually Will starts to resent Dot for not being a boy but Dot shows him she can work just as well. Although Dot is fond of the time she spent with Gwen and Will she has a secret that she must now reveal her secret to Gwen before she dies.

Cast and characters

 * June Brown as Dot Branning
 * Tallulah Pitt-Brown as Little Dot
 * Dafydd Emyr as Young Will
 * Rhys Parry Jones as Young Gwen
 * Gwenllian Davies as Ewan
 * Ruth Jones as Gwen
 * Claire Thurgood as Jenny Morgan

Production
"Dot's Story" was directed by Joanna Hogg and was said to be a "bridge" between the two major phases of Hogg's career. The episode uses elaborate flashbacks. It was billed as a "New Year special" of EastEnders that would focus on Dot's childhood. It was filmed on location in Dolgellau, north-west Wales, but the exact filming location was kept secret, with a BBC spokesperson saying, "It's a very tight schedule and we don't give out details because we don't want the general public to turn up while we're filming." Hywel Trewyn from the North Wales Daily Post reported that Gwynedd Council were unaware that the BBC were filming, but said that EastEnders producershad asked for permission to use parking spaces at the Marian, Dolgellau.

Broadcasts
It was reported that the episode was originally scheduled for broadcast on 1 January 2003, but it was shown on 2 January 2003 on BBC One and was repeated later the same day on BBC Choice. It was later broadcast in the United States by WLIW21 on 31 July 2009.

Reception
Neil Young, writing in 2014 for the Crossing Europe film festival, described "Dot's Story" as, "by some way the most formally adventurous of Hogg’s television works—with, at its core, a truly moving performance by Brown, whose Dot Cotton (a.k.a. Dot Branning) is now widely acknowledged as one of the greatest and most beloved characters in UK small-screen history."

In 2017, Steven Murphy, editor of Inside Soap, said that it was "sweet to see one-offs like Dot's early days in EastEnders", referring to "Dot's Story".

Ratings
Official ratings from the Broadcasters' Audience Research Board showed that the episode gained 7.94 million viewers.