{"id":785482,"date":"2026-09-28T17:20:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T17:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/785482\/"},"modified":"2026-09-28T17:20:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T17:20:11","slug":"eastenders-pays-tribute-to-michael-owen-morris-after-long-serving-directors-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/785482\/","title":{"rendered":"EastEnders pays tribute to Michael Owen Morris after long-serving director’s death"},"content":{"rendered":"

EastEnders<\/a> has shared a touching tribute to Michael Owen Morris, following his death earlier this year. Morris was one of EastEnders<\/a>‘ longest-serving directors, having worked on the soap for 16 years.
<\/p>\n

During that time, Morris collaborated with a number of executive producers such as Louise Berridge, Kate Harwood, Diederick Santer, Bryan Kirkwood, Lorraine Newman, Dominic Treadwell-Collins, Sean O’Connor, John Yorke, and Kate Oates. <\/p>\n

Tonight’s episode of EastEnders<\/a> is dedicated to Morris’ memory and features a tribute to the director, which is shown following the end credits. <\/p>\n

\"in<\/p>\n

BBC<\/p>\n

Related: EastEnders pays tribute as fan favourite Derek Martin dies, aged 92<\/a><\/p>\n

Morris first joined the soap in 2003 and was trusted with various special features, including the 2004 spin-off Pat and Mo.<\/p>\n

Set in the 1950s, the hour-long episode explored the backstory of Pat Evans (Pat St. Clement) and Mo Harris (Laila Morse), which led to their enduring feud.<\/p>\n

He also served as a producer on several episodes before leaving in 2019.<\/p>\n

Morris later returned to EastEnders in 2023 to direct the episode explaining Cindy Beale<\/a>‘s shocking rise from the dead. The character was supposedly killed off in 1998, but was revealed to be alive in France with Ian<\/a> and Peter Beale. <\/p>\n

\"anna<\/p>\n

BBC<\/p>\n

The episode explored why Cindy was forced to fake her death and live under a new identity. It also explained her connection to the Knight family and her reaction to her daughter Lucy’s death in 2014.<\/p>\n

As well as working on EastEnders, Morris’ other credits include The Onedin Line, Doctor Who, Vanity Fair, Tenko, Holby City and Casualty.<\/p>\n

EastEnders airs on Mondays – Thursdays at 7.30pm on BBC One. The show also streams on BBC iPlayer, where most episodes drop early at 6am ahead of their TV broadcast.<\/p>\n

Read more EastEnders spoilers on our dedicated homepage<\/a>
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EastEnders has shared a touching tribute to Michael Owen Morris, following his death earlier this year. Morris was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":785483,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[147950,379,258896,381,96,190731,1156,258895,223205,148025,391,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-785482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-collection-latest-news","tag-content-type-news","tag-contentid-b423107f-1bf5-414b-95f3-03f3d8343085","tag-displaytype-standard-article","tag-entertainment","tag-issyndicated-false","tag-locale-gb","tag-shorttitle-eastenders-pays-tribute-after-long-serving-directors-death","tag-sponsored-false","tag-subsection-eastenders","tag-tv","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=785482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/785483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=785482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=785482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=785482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}