EastEnders Writer Unveils Shocking Payday for Only 12 Episodes!

AN EastEnders script writer has revealed the incredible pay cheque he received for penning just 12 episodes.

, who now works at a supermarket parttime, wrote episodes for the beloved soap for eight years as one of its 12 core writers.

Richard Lazarus, who now works parttime at ASDA, wrote 55 episodes for EastEndersCredit: Our Asda He famously penned the episodes focusing on Archie’s will reading, starring Dame Barbara WindsorCredit: BBC Richard penned 55 episodes for the soapCredit: BBC

Richard penned 55 episodes for the show from 2007 after becoming a writer for the soap opera “completely by chance”.

Core writes for the soap write around 12 episodes each year, with the pay for this job now revealed.

He has now revealed his incredible pay cheque during an exclusive interview with The Sun.

“It was kind of, you know, a considerable six-figure sum, I’ll say that, for a year,” he told us.

“For which you would write 12 episodes.

“And you would go monthly-to-monthly short-term planning meetings, and then every 3 months, we’d go away for a week at a time for kind of long-term story planning, which we’d be looking at stories for, sort of, 18 months forward.

“You really couldn’t do anything else during that year,” he explained.

Before working on the soap, Richard had a stage play in London ‘on the fringe’ called Shopping Lists and Suicide Notes.

“Randomly, someone from the Film Council happened to come and see it one night, and approached me afterwards and invited me to come on this team for people who’ve not written for screen before, which was kind of exciting.

“So I went and did that for a year with the Film Council, and, learned how to write for screen,” he told us.

Richard explained how he produced a film script.

“I sent it out to everyone that I could think of who had a pulse,” he went on.

“Somehow it ended up on a BBC producer’s desk, and I got a phone call saying, ‘would you like to come in and talk about your script?’

“And that started out as they ‘really liked this script, and they wanted to turn it into a series, an original series’.

“So I spent about a year developing that with them, which came to nothing.”

He then explained how he got asked to “write an episode of EastEnders” following the blow of not having his original series made and aired.

“So I was like, okay, I’ll give that a go.”

“So I went with the intention of pretty much writing one episode, because I didn’t really know how TV worked, or anything.

“And they asked me to do another one, and it was only… I’d written two episodes, and they asked me to, become one of their core writers.

“Which is kind of extreme. There was 12 core writers.

“10 of them were people who had been on the show for years and years. And whose names I knew very well, because I’d always watched the show growing up.”

While working on the soap, Richard helped to introduce characters Roxy and Ronnie Mitchell, and also devised the gay romance storyline between Christian Clarke and Syed Masood.

We previously reporter how Richard now works for ASDA.

After leaving EastEnders in the past, Richard worked on several other TV shows before turning to playing poker.

The Covid lockdowns meant he could no longer play in-person poker, and eventually got a job at his local supermarket.

He plans to stop working altogether soon and retire, though is keep to write plays again and even musicals.

Richard worked on many iconic scenes from the soapCredit: BBC