Between May 18 and July 27, the Olympic Flame will come to within just 10 miles of 95 percent of the population of the UK, visiting iconic landmarks including Loch Ness and Stonehenge and…Walford, the fictional London borough home to Eastenders, one of Britain’s most popular soap operas.
The London Organising Committee for the 2012 Olympic Games (LOCOG) announced on Tuesday that it had added another location to the 1,000 cities, towns and villages already on the route of the Olympic Torch Relay.
Tuesday’s episode of Eastenders, an institution in British TV first broadcast on the BBC in 1985, will reveal the news that the flame will be passing through Walford’s Albert Square.
Character Billy Mitchell will discover he has been nominated as torchbearer in December.
The arrival of the Olympic Flame in Albert Square will be broadcast on July 23, 2012.
Although the episode will be largely filmed in advance, several minutes of the Olympic procession will be beamed direct to TV screens around the UK live, from the set, LOCOG said.