Tag: eastenders
Inside Dot Cotton’s heart-wrenching EastEnders funeral as soap legends return to Walford
EASTENDERS are set to welcome a whole host of the show’s legends for one last send-off to Dot Cotton, played by June Brown.
In emotional scenes, characters from both Dot’s past and present will come together to honour the late Albert Square mainstay as her funeral takes place.
Dot will be remembered in a special episode[/caption]
Cast past and present will attend the service[/caption]
A whole host of the show’s legends will gather for one last send-off for Dot Cotton, played by the late June Brown[/caption]
With Sonia (Natalie Cassidy) having received the devastating call to inform her of her grandmother’s passing, she sets about creating the most impressive send-off she can for Dot.
Among some of the legends who are back for the special episode are Colin Russell, Mary Smith, Lofty Holloway, Disa O’Brien, Barry Clark and Lauren Branning.
Ahead of their returns to the BBC soap, they discussed Dot’s legacy, remembered the iconic June Brown and how important it was for them to return.
Lord Michael Cashman (Colin Russell)
Colin is seen accompanying Sharon to the funeral[/caption]
Colin is mostly remembered for being Walford’s first on-screen gay resident and featured in the UK’s first homosexual kiss in a soap opera.
He appeared in the programme in the 1980s before returning in 2016 to work specifically with June on a storyline involving his wedding.
Lord Michael admitted he said ‘yes’ as soon as he was asked to return, saying: “When I got the first message asking if I’d be interested in returning, it was an unequivocal, unqualified ‘yes’. I couldn’t imagine Colin not being at his amazing friend Dot’s funeral and I couldn’t imagine not being there for June.
“She created a television icon that will stretch beyond the test of time. I had to be there, and I was humbled that they thought of me.”
Speaking of his favourite moment of working with June, he admitted: “I have so many, but one of my favourites was after she found out Colin and Barry were gay. The scene she did with Gary Hailes must go down as an iconic scene.”
Linda Davidson (Mary ‘The Punk’ Smith)
He catches up with Mary at the funeral[/caption]
Mary the Punk is remembered for being Walford’s original 80s wild child and now she had returned to pay tribute to her old friend.
Linda admitted that June taught her a lot at a young age, revealing: “June always was very nurturing of young talent, particularly of me. We did a scene you might remember where Dot and Mary get down on their knees in Mary’s little bedsit, and they pray together.
“June had tutored me in that scene and said, ‘Just be still, darling, it’s the hardest thing for an actress to do, but if you can master being still, you’ll steal the scene’.”
Tom Watt (Lofty Holloway)
Lofty is back on the square[/caption]
Lofty originally appeared in the show between 1985 and 1988 where he is remembered for a relationship with Michelle Fowler.
Recalling his memoires of being a young actor working with the great’s in the 80s, he said: “It was really good, and June was a part of that. I was also lucky to have worked closely with people like Bill Treacher (Arthur), Wendy Richard (Pauline), Leslie Graham (Den), Anita Dobson (Angie) and Gretchen Franklin (Ethel).
“With June, I looked at everything she did and went, ‘Woooah! Bloody hell!’ You had to respect and admire how she went about what she did.”
Jan Graveson (Disa O’Brien)
Disa will be back for Dot’s funeral[/caption]
Jan admitted she was delighted to get the call to come back for the special scenes and to be playing Disa once again.
The actress said: “It’s something that I’ve always wished for in the back of my mind. So, when my agent called me and said that EastEnders had been on the phone, I thought. ‘Goodie! Fantastic!’
“I was so excited and absolutely thrilled. June had always hoped that I would go back. She loved our scenes and our acting together.”
Gary Hailes (Barry Clark)
Barry was one of the biggest characters in the 1980s[/caption]
Barry is remembered as the unlikely partner of his middle-aged boyfriend Colin.
He looked back fondly at his time filming with the legendary June, revealing: “June was an amazing person and a character in the truest sense of the word. There is no one like June – I’ve never met anyone even close to who she was and what she was like.
“To be asked back for this was really special, especially as I worked a lot with June because of Dot and Barry’s friendship.”
Jacqueline Jossa (Lauren Branning)
Lauren is back from New Zealand for the funeral[/caption]
Actress Jacqueline admitted she felt it was important to return to represent the Branning side of the family that Dot had.
The star said: “June deserves the send-off she’s going to get at EastEnders, and I wanted to be a part of that and be involved.
“It was nice to be there to represent that side of the Branning family because there are family members always off gallivanting and doing different things.”
It is set to be an emotional day in the Square[/caption]
Sir Cliff Richard shuts down EastEnders star calling family story ‘absolute rubbish’
Bill Treacher almost didn’t take iconic EastEnders role which he was best known for
Former Eastenders actor Danny Hatchard rushed to hospital with arm injury
EastEnders’ Letitia Dean, 54, and Gillian Taylforth, 67, film Dot Cotton’s funeral
Strictly and EastEnders star James Bye reveals why there is ‘added pressure’ for him to reach the final
EastEnders actor James Bye has revealed he is under “added pressure” to make it to the final of Strictly Come Dancing.
James, 38, who played market trader Martin Fowler in the BBC soap since 2014 has opened up about his nerves ahead of Strictly.
James has revealed there is “added pressure” on his shoulders[/caption]
James as Martin Fowler in EastEnders[/caption]
The family man has explained how the success of the Albert Square residents who have previously competed on the reality show is very daunting.
Asked whether he has the glitterball trophy in his sights, James said: “I’d love to get to Blackpool, then you can say you really gave it a good go. There is also the added pressure that the last three people from EastEnders have been in the final!”
James is of course referring to Rose Ayling-Ellis, who played Frankie on the show, who won last year with Giovanni Pernice.
Prior to that, in 2021, Maisie Smith, aka Tiffany Butcher Baker, was runner-up, while in 2020, Honey Mitchell actress Emma Barton finished third.
Read more on Strictly
And even those Walford favourites who didn’t make the final made quite the impression.
James revealed: “My best friend, Davood Ghadami [Kush Kazemi] was on the show years ago, and I came to watch and he was great. I remember him doing the Paso Doble and that did look good.
“At the time I wound him up about it, but I was really proud of him. Also Jake Wood, when he did the snake hips to Mambo No. 5, that was a million miles from Max Branning.”
James also sang the praises of reigning champion Rose.
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“When the music dropped I think she brought the nation to tears,” he said. “It was beautiful and she is such an incredible human being.”
As for any advice his co-stars past and present have given him, James told how they have all their wise words are “pretty much the same”.
He added: When I was announced I had lots of people calling me, Brian Conley, Tameka Empson and obviously Davood. The advice to be honest, was pretty much the same and it was just enjoy yourself and embrace it.
“It’s completely different to anything else. I think Brian’s words were ‘You’re never going to have an experience like it, so just don’t miss a beat, just go with it’, and I’m really going to hold on to that.”
Of course juggling a full time role on the soap with Strictly’s intense training schedule isn’t easy, but James has worked with EastEnders bosses to make sure he can do both.
He told The Sun Online: “As far as I’m aware at the minute they’re going to quieten me down as much as possible.
Read More on The Sun
“I’m still going to be in the show, but the beauty is that we film across the road [from Strictly studios] so as soon as I’m finished filming I can shoot over to this and rehearse.
“We’re just going to have to find time where we can to start with, but they’re really understanding at EastEnders, they’re brilliant at that.”
James cosies up to wife Victoria[/caption]
Former EastEnders actress Jacqueline Jossa reunites with on-screen dad Jake Wood
EastEnders briefly made contact with reality… and it was beautiful
OVER on EastEnders, this week, little Tommy Moon slightly underplayed the disaster that was about to hit the Square when he said: “The twins have done something terrible.”
For it was a worse calamity than he or any of the show’s other little toe-rags ever thought possible.
Moving… Linda places a picture of the Queen by Victoria’s bust[/caption]
Alfie is back and wants to know ‘what’s going on here?’[/caption]
They’d invited Shane “Alfie Moon” Richie back, without a packet of Daz, but armed with a dangerously open-ended question for Kat Slater: “What’s going on here?”
Well, where the hell do you start, without mentioning the catastrophic ratings decline?
But the short answer, I suppose, is “Same s**t, different names”. For if a woman hangs around Walford long enough she will eventually have to marry Phil Mitchell. And, on Monday, it was meant to be Kat’s turn.
READ MORE FROM ALLY ROSS
Righteous fury
News which surprised Alfie almost as much as it pained him, because the last time he appeared on EastEnders, in 2019, Phil was threatening to kill Kat.
If he wants to survive in this hell pit, though, Alfie will quickly have to re-adjust to the fact it’s not just Kat, it’s the entire E20 postcode that’s suffering from mass amnesia.
To give but one example, last month, Ranveer Gulati was beaten to death with a clock, by his son Ravi, while attempting to rape Suki Panesar, but was then forgotten about as completely as McKlunky’s chicken shop and The Queen Vic’s mixed-gender football team.
There’s been no mention of him since then, let alone any investigation from Walford plod, who’ve probably got their hands full given that, in recent weeks, Ben’s also been raped and teacher Frankie’s just been sexually harassed by a random male, who’s unrelated to the group of boys who sexually harassed her at school, or the other group of men who sexually harassed her in the restaurant, on Wednesday.
Most read in Opinion
A plague of attacks and lectures that was going to continue, Frankie assured us, until: “Boys were educated.”
An unusual way to try to attract young viewers, but you get the picture, I hope?
EastEnders was in yet another frenzy of righteous woke fury when real life intruded in the saddest possible way, last week, with the death of the Queen. One of those seismic national events that forced the show to do a late insert. Personally, I always dread these moments, as they’re usually dictated by football, which is another working-class passion EastEnders clearly disdains.
So it either involves dialogue that sounds more like a Pathé newsreel or a cringe-mongering scene, like the all-female conga round The Vic, which marked England’s women’s Euro victory.
On Monday the perilous task fell to Kathy Beale and Denise Fox, who had to engage in a few wistful reflections with the soap’s token royalist, Linda Carter, whose love of the Royal Family is regarded as an eccentric character quirk by the show rather than the natural order of things, as it is in the real London.
Just at the moment I thought EastEnders had blown it and was going through the motions, though, something rather unexpected and magical happened. Linda placed a picture of Elizabeth II in front of the Queen Victoria bust and said simply: “Look after her, won’t you.” In terms of the sentiment and economy of words, it could hardly have been more beautifully judged or affecting.
The reason it had extra impact, though, was that, just for once, EastEnders was being led by the spot-on instincts of its viewers who, as the past week’s incredible scenes have demonstrated, are driven by a deep sense of patriotism and love for the Queen.
Ceased hostilities
This is highly unusual for the BBC1 soap, which has recently given every indication it regards the working class as sexist, racist, homophobic monsters who, without their constant hectoring, would be forming right-wing terror cells like the Aaron Monroe-led gang who tried to blow up Walford’s since forgotten mosque at the turn of the year.
It’d be nice to think Monday marked the point EastEnders ceased hostilities, stopped regarding all men as b*****ds and women as their long-suffering victims who’ve all got the inexplicable hots for Phil Mitchell.
But last time I looked, Kat’s wedding was back on and Tracey, the silent Queen Vic barmaid, had just claimed Phil was: “The best sex I ever had.”
On that bombshell . . .
Ferne’s no glam mam…
Towie’s Ferne McCann on Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins[/caption]
A CONFRONTATION for the ages on Sunday’s episode of Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins.
On one side of the table, Mark “Billy” Billingham MBE, Warrant Officer first class, who served his country for 27 years and won The Queen’s Commendation for Bravery.
On the other, Towie’s Ferne McCann, who successfully collected eight stars during I’m A Celeb’s Panic Pit Bushtucker Trial, back in 2015. As a contest then, it was over the moment Billy hit her with these curveballs: “Who are you? And what do you do?”
Two questions that go to the heart of one of SAS: WDW’s biggest problems. Because, on the one hand, you’ve got a voiceover insisting the 14 celebs are “leaving their glamorous lives behind”.
While on the other, you’ve got Ferne, alongside other obscurities like Pete Wicks, Shannon Courtenay, Ashley Cain and Jonathan Broom-Edwards, who aren’t leaving any such thing behind. Plus former Brookside actress Jennifer Ellison, who didn’t really help the viewers out by admitting: “I don’t know who I am or what I’m doing.”
Unlike Ferne though, who tried to bluster it out with Billy, Jennifer doesn’t have a monstrous showbiz ego, but she still has the same tiresome capacity for self-pity as all the young contestants, and claimed: “For the last 11 years, it’s almost like the Jennifer Ellison switch has been switched off.”
Click. 11 years and 37 minutes.
CELEBRITY SAS: Who Dares Wins: “My name is Ferne McCann and I guess I’m like a TV personality.”
Then guess again.
FIRST Time Mum, Ferne McCann: “I’m almost like the poster girl for bladder leaks.”
Unexpected morons in the bagging area
TIPPING POINT, Ben Shephard: “Occurring in June, the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere takes place in which season?”
Helen: “Spring.”
Ben Shephard: “Which European country is known in its native language as Deutschland?”
Chloe: “Holland.”
Ben Shephard: “The chocolate treat Kinder Surprise is typically sold in the shape of which poultry product?”
Susie: “Chicken.”
Random TV irritations
BBC2’s South America presenter Simon Reeve slyly trying to blame Venezuela’s collapse on “American sanctions” rather than its barmy left-wing government.
Absolutely none of the dimwit Masked Dancer judges suggesting the Riverdancing Tomato Sauce character might be Steph McGovern.
And BBC1’s coverage of Scotland’s Service For HM The Queen hitting the skids at the exact moment “special guest” Lulu said: “And the third time I met her I was with Chaka Khan and Anastacia.”
So if everyone could avoid asking Lulu about the first and second times she met the Queen, it would be appreciated, thanks.
AT some point during the BBC’s superb coverage of the week’s sad events, we will all probably have been knocked sideways by the awful realisation: “She’s gone.”
My own came during the Queen’s final journey from Balmoral to Aberdeen – a place I know well and love like nowhere else on Earth.
It’s never looked more heartbreakingly beautiful, though, than it did on Sunday, lined with the people of Royal Deeside, whose tribute was so characteristically dignified and silent it clearly surprised some members of Jane Hill’s BBC team, who’ve become used to far more demonstrative displays of grief, in recent times.
Yet, by honouring her in this way, they demonstrated not only why the Queen chose to live among kindred spirits but why they, in return, loved and embraced this remarkable woman and will ensure her legacy endures forever in Scotland.
Great sporting insights
PEP GUARDIOLA: “Haaland is a striker that you can’t buy. Unless you pay.”
Jermaine Jenas on Spurs: “They’ve turned up to Lisbon today and not turned up again.”
Paul Merson: “If Liverpool get going, they get going. Because when they click, they click.”
(Compiled by Graham Wray)
GREAT TV lies and delusions of the month.
The Big Breakfast, AJ Odudu: “Our next guest is one of the funniest women in the UK. It’s the hilarious Rosie Jones.”
Celebrity MasterChef, Kitty Scott-Claus: “I’m not just a pretty face.”
Celeb Cooking School, Sam Thompson: “I’m like chlamydia. You have to take so many pills to get rid of me.”
’Cos he’s actually more like syphilis. A pain in the a*se who’s now got inside my head.
TV Gold
BBC2’s brilliant documentary series The Boys From Brazil: Rise Of The Bolsonaros, which is the best thing on TV at the moment.
Welcome To Wrexham, on Disney+. House Of The Dragon achieving lift-off with its fourth Sky Atlantic episode.
And the timely return of Mortimer and Whitehouse, who provided the most welcome relief from Friday’s events by explaining the science of barbecuing, on BBC2’s Gone Fishing: “No virus can survive over 60 degrees.”
“Says who?”
“Van Halen.”
Read More on The Sun
Lookalike of the week
THIS week’s winner is EastEnders’ Sharon Watts and Brian Connolly from The Sweet. Emailed in by Valerie Bowler.
Picture research: AMY READING
STEPH’S Packed Lunch, Steph McGovern: “For the first time, the top four government jobs do not feature a white man. That’s got to be a good thing, hasn’t it?”
Erm. Why?
Unless you’re just a different sort of bigot?
EastEnders fans ‘figure out’ who Kat Slater’s kids sent secret text to as missing episode airs
EASTENDERS fans were convinced they had ‘figured out’ who Kat Slater’s kids sent a secret text to as a missing episode aired.
BBC One showed Thursday’s episode last night, after it was postponed due to the passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth.
Jessie Wallace, who plays Kat Slater brought the drama in Eastenders[/caption]
She had her hands full with kids Bert and Ernie[/caption]
When Phil returned from his night out with Kat, only to find her twins Bert and Ernie were still up, he was less than impressed.
After giving them a dressing down, EastEnders fans thought that would be the end of it.
However at the end of the episode, the twins complained to one another over how they had been treated.
They were seen slipping their mum’s phone back into her bag after sending a secret text.
Read more on EastEnders
Now fans were convinced they knew who Kat Slater’s children secretly texted – and they flocked to Twitter to comment.
One fan wrote: “Bert & Ernie txting Alfie to come back and save Kat.”
A second agreed: “Bert & Ernie texted Alfie, didn’t they?”
A third rejoiced: “Bert and Ernie have texted Alfie from Kat’s phone, THANK YOU BERT AND ERNIE.”
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EastEnders fans rejoiced after it was announced the show was about to welcome back one of its most iconic ever characters – with Alfie Moon returning to Albert Square.
Shane Richie is going to reprise his role as the loveable rogue for the first time in more than three years.
The actor, 58, said: “It’s an absolute honour and privilege to be asked back to my TV home of Albert Square.
“I’m looking forward to catching up with some old castmates and meeting some new ones.
“The new exec producer, Chris Clenshaw, has been instrumental in wanting to bring Alfie Moon back with some wonderful storylines… and who am I to say no? I can’t wait.”
Alfie fled Walford and EastEnders in January 2019, making an enemy of Steve McFadden’s Phil Mitchell in the process.
Now Kat and Phil are about to tie the knot, it can only spell trouble.
Bert and Ernie slipped into their mum’s purse to get her phone[/caption]