I was watching Eastenders the other day and I saw Dot Cotton smoking in her kitchen. It made me think that surely a television studio is considered a workplace and I wondered how the producers of Eastenders are getting round the smoking ban or are they breaking the law?
chimney Sun 07/09/08 10:39
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The smoking ban does not affect in your own home.
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The Smoke-free (Exemptions and Vehicles) Regulations 2007 apply to England and it states-
“Performers
6. Where the artistic integrity of a performance makes it appropriate for a person who is taking part in that performance to smoke, the part of the premises in which that person performs is not smoke-free in relation to that person during his performance.”
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Didn't notice the previous answer before I posted so I hope it has not come as a big shock to terambulan that EastEnders is not a reality tv show....
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The law also includes a limited exemption for performers, which applies to the performer only during the performance, where the artistic integrity of a performance makes it appropriate for a person who is taking part to smoke.
http://www.smokefreeengland.co.uk/faq/exemptio ns.html
So no laws are being broken
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Am aware TheCoo.. but Dot is enacting her home.
Was the ciggy lit, did she inhale and exhale....maybe she was 'acting' smoking?
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Question Author
terambulan - I know the character is portraying her own home life, but that scene was being filmed in a studio which is a workplace, its not a real house.
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The question was about smoking in a workplace ie a tv studio. The legislation allows it, it is nothing to do wi the fact that it was the character's kitchen.
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And it would certainly compromise the integrity of the performance in this case, as regular viewers will be fully aware of Dot's relationship to the weed and of her battles to renounce it.
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Apparently, June Brown who plays Dot Cotton, is a heavy smoker in real life and insists on smoking wherever she chooses.
I agree, as a workplace, she should not be allowed to smoke.
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...and it hasn't done her much harm after all she's turned 80, some people get away with it.. my old aunt did, 40 a day till she died at 87 & that was of liver cancer. Yet my neighbour died of lung cancer at 54 & had never had a cig. between her lips in all her life.
I'm not saying its ok to smoke but I think there's a big question mark as to whether it kills you.
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Good point Phylcat.
My dad died of complications of cancer of the oesophagus, having been a heavy smoker for nearly sixty years, so it would be easy to attribute the cancer to his smoking.
However, he also spent his entire working life in the knitting industry, breathing in all manner of dust and chemical fumes. Who can say whether it was the smoking or the work, a combination of the two or something completely different that caused the cancer.
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