Description
The story of Londons East End, that exotic dumping ground of a great city, with its colourful, cheeky, salt-of-the-earth inhabitants is told by Steven Berkoff, film star, playwright and director, who grew up in the East End and lives there still, despite his rise to fame and eminence.
Berkoff, the son of an East End tailor, takes us on a riotous ride through the history of the East End - down the mean streets where Mosley led his Fascist marchers, into the pubs where local gangsters fought their turf wars and along Petticoat Lane where the real life Del-boys still do their deals.
But he reveals it was also a world of dynamic social reformers (such as Dr Barnardo and General Booth) and of powerful family values that even in wretched poverty somehow prevailed. Berkoff looks at the EastEnders who became cultural heroes, from Alfred Hitchcock to Bobby Moore.