EastEnders News In Brief
A round up of smaller stories about the residents of Albert Square.
Geoffrey Hutchings is soon to appear in a number of episodes of EastEnders to play Jane and Christian’s father, Roger. He is probably best known for his roles in ITV sitcom Benidorm in which he played Madge’s boyfriend Mel and prison drama Bad Girls where he played Sylvia ‘Bodybag’ Hollamby’s husband Bobby.
He turns up in Walford in a couple of weeks time to take estranged wife Linda (Lynda Baron) home but will she head back to the States with him?
According to an article on teletext, EastEnders plan to introduce more characters with disabilities later this year after viewers complained about the lack of disabled characters in the London based saga.
Boss Diederick Santer has promised “big changes” and reveals the team behind the soap have been looking into introducing more characters with disabilities. Access to the studios at Elstree has had to improve but now the writers are apparently working on new characters that will make their debut later in the year.
Shane Richie has revealed that he would make a return to EastEnders depending on if the storyline was right. Personally we would rather he stayed away – if there was a book about the decline of EastEnders during the Louise Berridge years then surely this man’s face would be on the cover? And are we getting de ja vu? I’m sure this is not the first time Richie has expressed a desire to return to Walford. Richie left the soap in December 2005 despite lucrative offers to renew his contact – we were rather relieved when he didn’t.
According to reports, he said of his time with the BBC1 Soap “I loved it, I had a great time in the three years I was there to the point that I didn’t really want to go, but things change. They’ve left it open, and maybeone day a producer may come along and say, ‘I tell you what, we’ve got a great storyline’. If I’m available and if the story’s worth doing then I’d come back.”
The actor is soon to star in the rejuvenated Minder. Speaking of his new role, Richie explained that the most important challenge had been getting the relationship right with his co-stars
“Once you get that right it’s like Kat and Alfie, Del Boy and Rodney, Thelma and Louise… If you get the relationship right you can take people anywhere on a journey because they’ll buy into it,” he said.