EASTENDERS - EASTENDERS COFFIN SCENE PROVOKES AUDIENCE COMPLAINTS

More than 100 viewers have complained to the BBC after a scene in EastEnders in which a character was buried alive.

The scene in question showed Max Branning (Jake Wood) being drugged by his wife Tanya (Jo Joyner) and put into a grave dug by her lover Sean Slater (Robert Kazinsky) and has provoked viewers' ire after being shown before the 21:00 GMT watershed.

The episode, which was shown on Friday at 20:00 GMT, has prompted 167 complaints from audience members upset at the scene's potential to upset children watching.

However the BBC said in comparison with the show's audience figures, the viewers angered by the scene was not representative of a majority.

"EastEnders is known for its dramatic and gripping storylines and, from a total audience of ten million, the number of complaints is relatively small," a spokeswoman explained.

Joyner had earlier this week told Digital Spy she was "really upset" when she found out about the scene while Wood, who plays the adulterous Max, said the burial was "the culmination of a year's storylines".

"Being buried alive is Max's greatest fear since his dad Jim did it to him when he was a child," he told the Sun newspaper. "It seems quite extreme when you first read about it but the writers have done it justice."

He added: "When they do something like this you just hope it's written well so it doesn't seem like it's just come out of nowhere - and I don't think this does.

"Viewers who have been watching for the last 18 months will see where Tanya's motives have come from."

Tanya Branning discovered her husband Max's affair with Stacey Slater (Lacey Turner) in the EastEnders Christmas Day episode.