Diederick Santer
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Diederick Santer (born 1970) is a British television producer and is currently the Executive Producer of the popular BBC television soap opera EastEnders, with additional responsibility for developing younger skewing drama series and serials.
Santer graduated from the University of Leeds with a degree in Psychology and the History and Philosophy of Science.
His TV career began in 1996 as a freelance script reader for United Productions before becoming script editor on the first two series of Where the Heart Is, and assistant script editor on Paul Abbott's ITV series Touching Evil.
Santer moved to Granada Television where he script-edited the first two series of A&E and The Last Train before joining BBC Drama Series and Serials in 2000, where he produced the first three series of Debbie Horsfield's hairdressing drama Cutting It, starring Sarah Parish and Amanda Holden.
Santer recently produced The Taming of the Shrew, the Bafta-nominated Much Ado About Nothing for BBC One, and a lavish adaptation of Jane Eyre.
[edit] EastEnders
On 23 October 2006, Santer became the Executive Producer of EastEnders. His first episode as producer was transmitted on 5 January 2007. Characters he has introduced include Hazel Hobbs (Kika Mirylees), Heather Trott (Cheryl Fergison), Jase Dyer (Stephen Lord), Ronnie and Roxy Mitchell (Samantha Janus and Rita Simons), Masood Ahmed (Nitin Ganatra), Zainab, Shabnam and Tamwar Masood (Nina Wadia, Zahra Ahmadi and Himesh Patel), Jack Branning (Scott Maslen), Vinnie Monks (Bobby Davro),Christian Clarke (John Partridge), Whitney Dean (Shona McGarty), Morgan Jackson-King (Devon Higgs), Tiffany Dean, and Lucas Johnson (Don Gilet).
These characters filled the gaps left by a string of characters that Santer chose to axe from EastEnders since arriving; Naomi Julien (Petra Letang), Bert Atkinson (Dave Hill), Carly (Kellie Shirley), Deano Wicks (Matt Di Angelo), Preeti Choraria (Babita Pohoomull), Gus Smith (Mohammed George), Steven Beale (Aaron Sidwell) (considering he only re-introduced him into the show 6 months earlier), Keith Miller (David Spinx), Mickey Miller (Joe Swash) and Honey Mitchell (Emma Barton). He has also seen Kevin Wicks (Phil Daniels),Sean Slater (Rob Kazinsky) and Gemma Bissix (Clare Bates) make their decisions to leave the show, although Parish will return to reprise her role as Denise following her maternity leave.
He reinstated characters to return in 2008. These characters include Clare Bates (Gemma Bissix), Bianca Jackson (Patsy Palmer) and Ricky Butcher (Sid Owen). He also reinstated more characters for a week of episodes in 2008, including Janine Butcher (Charlie Brooks) and Diane Butcher (Sophie Lawrence). As well as reinstating Janine back for 'Frank Week' in April 2008, he has reinstated her to return permanently in Autumn 2008.
Santer has been praised by the BBC Chief of Drama John Yorke for, in particular, developing "new, strong characters" such as Jack Branning, Ronnie Mitchell and Roxy Mitchell, and for developing existing young characters such as Stacey Branning (Lacey Turner) and Bradley Branning (Charlie Clements)
