Creation and Development
EastEnders story editor, Ian Aldwinkle, decided to introduce a character with schizophrenia after working on the drama series Casualty, which featured violent and dramatic incidents involving people with the illness, but only focussed on the medical side. Aldwinkle researched the illness and says he was shocked to discover that it affects one in 100 people, but it was rarely spoken about. He said: "Because it has a continuing storyline, EastEnders was able to look at the effect that schizophrenia has on a family and on individual relationships. I wanted to humanise it and look at the emotional impact it has on people." He said he hoped that the storyline would be helpful, saying "It seems to me that mental illness is one of the last subjects that you can still make jokes about without being labelled politically incorrect, and that seems wrong. If I get just one letter from one person saying that the character of Joe Wicks has helped to change their life for the better, then I will be pleased."
EastEnders worked closely with experts from the National Schizophrenia Fellowship to make the plot as accurate as possible. Gary Hogman of the fellowship said "It was the largest ever schizophrenia awareness initiative, reaching an audience of 10 million people three times a week. People could watch Joe going through the motions. We showed things were not so bad and how you could get help. There is so much misinformation about schizophrenia with the media focusing on extreme cases. And Joe was a handsome young man, not a spotty loner. He showed that schizophrenia can happen to anyone and made it easier for people to talk about it."
The National Schizophrenia Fellowship contacted mental health organisations in other countries to brief them on how they could use the storyline to raise awareness.
In January 2012, Nicholls told the Press Association that he cannot remember his time on EastEnders as Joe. The actor said "I can't really remember it. It's really weird. I remember driving to work and being on set a few times, but if I ever look back now, it's just blank. I just can't really remember being in it. I do recall coming out of EastEnders and the attention dying down 50% in the first six months, and then a couple of years later it was 95%."
Read more about this topic: Joe Wicks
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