In case you've missed it, Sid Owen says he's never returning to Eastenders. Ever. And he sounds pretty angry about it. You can read the article in full here. It's not particularly long or taxing and even the lowest common denominator of wit (currently the demographic to whom the soap is appealing) would understand everything without any difficulty.
Anyway, Sid sounds pretty browned off.
Yep, pretty browned off, especially that last bit. Checking in for a look at Digital Spy's soaps forum this morning, I noticed that Walford Web resident know-it-all and name-dropper TimWil, allegedly a writer from New York who likes to sidle up to the rich and famous before injecting a name or two into a conversation with a pleb in order to impress, had put in an appearance on the forum to impart a juicy bit of gossip/rumour as fact.
According to TimWil, who once got a lift from June Brown, there was talk of sacking Owen back in 2011, but eventually TPTB decided to let it look as though he were leaving. Part of that actually sounds plausible, considering the way the last regime at Eastenders, from late 2010 onwards, wantonly and deliberately lied to viewers, a practice that the fragrant Lorraine Newman seems to be continuing as well. Also, it doesn't surprise me either that Bryan Kirkwood would seek to break up the Ricky-and-Bianca dynamic. After all, they were an established and very iconic couple, who could have been the natural successors to Pauline and Arthur; and Kirkwood liked nothing better than fucking up established characters, especially the iconic variety and especially if they were involved in an equally iconic relationship with an equally iconic character.
Here's my theory - and, unlike TimWil, I'm presenting it entirely as a theory, not fact. The closest I've ever come to being within the airspace of an Eastenders' actor was when I found myself at a Buck House Garden Party and standing, in wait for the Queen to appear, behind a morning-suited Steve McFadden, so I can't presume to present opinion or rumour as fact.
Anyhoo, cast your mind back to the end of 2010. The babyswap storyline is just waiting to happen, and Patsy Palmer goes into an early labour and has to take maternity leave early. Now fast forward to late January-early February 2012, when Bryan Kirkwood announces that Patsy Palmer would be taking an extended maternity leave of one year, instead of the requisite six months. Shortly after that, he announced that Sid Owen would also be taking a sabbatical of a year in order to work on a water charity of which he was a patron. His last word on the subject was that "Ricky and Bianca would be back on our screens sometime in 2012."
No cause for alarm ... until Palmer issued a statement through her agent, saying that whilst she was on maternity leave, she realised her contract was up for renewal and decided not to renew it. In an interview with Hello! magazine, she confirmed that her decision was influenced by the babyswap storyline, and that she had decided not to return, that she had finished her contract with Eastenders and didn't want to be tied to anything. In fact, if and when the show decided to have her back, she'd consider it, but at that moment, her family was the most important thing. Furthermore, in February of that year, Palmer admitted that she didn't miss Eastenders in the least. As if to dot an "i" and cross a further "t", later in 2011, she fell pregnant again, but miscarried. If that pregnancy had proven viable, Patsy Palmer would have never returned.
What prompted her to do so was Kirkwood offering her a contract allowing her to work six months and then take six months off. She calls it a "working mum's contract" and wouldn't all we working mothers like to have such a thing!
But now we know the truth about Sid Owen, whose departure at the beginning of this year in the wake of Pat's death left many viewers with mouths agape wondering if Ricky had, indeed, left for good (via his receiving Julia's Theme upon his departure), I have to ask what is the point of keeping Bianca afloat? I know the general opinion was that Ricky, without Bianca, didn't work; but when Ricky returned for the few episodes surrounding Janine's wedding, he worked very well as a single dad coping with small children - something we've never seen on Eastenders before. Yet in the Eastenders redesigned by Kirkwood, male characters - unless they are Brannings - are pejorative things, and mouthy, chavvy women are the strong'uns. So Ricky is sacrificed, and we all await the return of Bianca, the Bianca whom most viewers lately described as "vile."
How can she work? She's another eternal victim, blaming everything but her own fecklessness and lack of common sense for her poverty-stricken plight. She's alienated her uncle, Ian - who, by all accounts, will be going through an emotional trauma of his own when she reappears; she's alienated her sister-in-law, Janine, who actually did try to look after Bianca's brood, but who will also be dealing with personal matters and preparing to leave right about the time Bianca returns. She was caught by the market inspector stealing from a trader, so employment on a stall is out of the question. She's a single mum with three school-aged kids, one of whom is a rude little wotsit. What man - and there are limited men on the Square at the moment, would hitch his wagon to this rude mare?
There are rumours abounding that Ms Newman is reviewing Palmer's contract. Let's hope Lorraine shows more balls than she's shown in not changing any of the crapiola storylines left over by Birkwood, and calls time on Bianca's character. This time, for good.
But Ricky and Bianca weren't the only porkie pie viewers were served by Bryan Kirkwood. There was the little matter of Jane Beale.
Laurie Brett was another pregnant actress in 2011, who left early in the year on maternity leave. Her leaving line was Jane's divorce from Ian being finalised. Jane received the cafe as part of her settlement and also got Julia's Theme as she walked away from the Square. Six months later, in November 2011, Laurie Brett returned, with an announcement from Bryan Kirkwood, that Brett would be returning for three months, then taking a sabbatical of a year in order to spend time with her new daughter. Jane returned, found Ian with Mandy and Mas divorced from Zainab, and she promptly succumbed to her passion for Mas.
However, she left at the end of January for a new job as a sous-chef in Cardiff. Sounded pretty final, especially since her boss told her there was a chance she'd go to Paris to work in a year's time. Well, it was. Final, I mean.
After Brett left, again leaving viewers scratching their heads in wonder, it was announced that she was joining the cast of Waterloo Road. It was then that Brett announced that she had actually called time on Jane because the character had been running around in circles for sometime, and she felt it was time to put an end to her tenure.
Here's the actual truth behind Bryan Kirkwood's lie: Laurie Brett took her maternity leave, knowing that when she returned, she'd have three months left on her current contract. She agreed to return for that, but decided she didn't want to renew it. She left.
Now, it looks as if the whole damned shabang has gone into bunker mode, and I'm left wondering about the two most recent high profiled imminent departures. Although the Twittersphere was alight for weeks with rumours of June Brown's departure, it was finally announced, just a mere two weeks before she left, that Brown was taking a six-month leave in order to travel and finish her autobiography. At first, that was denied by Brown, who stated she didn't know how long she'd be gone, that she missed the company of Barbara Windsor and Pam St Clement, and that Polly Perkins was also leaving (something we'd not yet been told), so she was at a bit of a loss, thought she'd do some different things and finish an autobiography she started in 2003.
Dot was spirited off to visit her granddaughter in her aged mini cooper in the dead of night with little fanfare. I still am suspicious that she will return, and I could see the sneaks now in power at Eastenders fobbing us off with this lie and a low-key departure in order to stem any mass pandemonium radged up by the tabloids about the state of things at Eastenders.
Ditto the departure of Jo Joyner. Please note: Joyner has not renewed her contract. That doesn't mean she's taking a break; it means she's leaving. As much as she says she's going to return, that really isn't down to her - it's down to Lorraine Newman, or whoever will be in charge when they decide that it really might be interesting to have Tanya pop up on the Square again. That could be in two years' time, it could be in five years' time, it could be never. One thing for certain - people who say she's taking a six-month break or a year's break are deluding themselves. Joyner is leaving. And the PR Department are doing for her, exactly what they did for Letitia Dean when she left in 2006, after a slew of actors in major parts decamped during Kate Harwood's era: They've put out the meme that she's "taking a break." Well, I'd remind everyone that Joyner wants to be at home with her very small children (like Palmer), there's been no talk of any "working mum's contract" for her, and Dean's "break" was six years long.
Think about that.
Still, we're left with a show chocked full of characters who seem to be extremely unpopular with long-term and even some newer viewers - Derek, Whitney, the new and immensely hateful Kat, the steroid-enhanced half of the Goon Brothers - all characters who aren't working with viewers and who aren't served with any workable sort of scripts or storylines. We're left with an ever-increasing family of sleazeballs, the Brannings, whom we're supposed to accept as the main family on the Square, which include a plank of wood and a young sapling, both hired for their looks and not for their talent.
I don't know how Newman is going to sort the mess out that Kirkwood left. Speaking after the BSAs, Rita Simons and Scott Maslen stated that she wasn't going to change any of the scripts that had been blocked by Kirkwood until August; now the story is that she's not changing any of the storylines he's left intact for the rest of the year, when it would be well within her remit to do so, and when she can easily see that what Kirkwood did wasn't at all in the interest of the programme, but only in the interest of his ego.
I worry for Eastenders, because I remember when Brookside was outstripping Eastenders, Corrie and Emmerdale back in 1993, and ten years later, it was toast.
If nothing else, after all of Kirkwood's lies, Lorraine Newman, who is really a public servant paid by the public purse - i.e, us - owes the viewers of the programme she fronts more than a bit of honesty.
Anyway, Sid sounds pretty browned off.
I’ve retired. I’m now living permanently in France, where I have been on-and-off for the last 10 years, and I’m running my restaurant.“I haven’t quite made my millions but I’m happy doing that and I’ll never be back.“I’m done with the UK and I hope that you will never see me on your TV screens again because I’m done and I’ve retired. I much prefer the lifestyle I have now.
Yep, pretty browned off, especially that last bit. Checking in for a look at Digital Spy's soaps forum this morning, I noticed that Walford Web resident know-it-all and name-dropper TimWil, allegedly a writer from New York who likes to sidle up to the rich and famous before injecting a name or two into a conversation with a pleb in order to impress, had put in an appearance on the forum to impart a juicy bit of gossip/rumour as fact.
According to TimWil, who once got a lift from June Brown, there was talk of sacking Owen back in 2011, but eventually TPTB decided to let it look as though he were leaving. Part of that actually sounds plausible, considering the way the last regime at Eastenders, from late 2010 onwards, wantonly and deliberately lied to viewers, a practice that the fragrant Lorraine Newman seems to be continuing as well. Also, it doesn't surprise me either that Bryan Kirkwood would seek to break up the Ricky-and-Bianca dynamic. After all, they were an established and very iconic couple, who could have been the natural successors to Pauline and Arthur; and Kirkwood liked nothing better than fucking up established characters, especially the iconic variety and especially if they were involved in an equally iconic relationship with an equally iconic character.
Here's my theory - and, unlike TimWil, I'm presenting it entirely as a theory, not fact. The closest I've ever come to being within the airspace of an Eastenders' actor was when I found myself at a Buck House Garden Party and standing, in wait for the Queen to appear, behind a morning-suited Steve McFadden, so I can't presume to present opinion or rumour as fact.
Anyhoo, cast your mind back to the end of 2010. The babyswap storyline is just waiting to happen, and Patsy Palmer goes into an early labour and has to take maternity leave early. Now fast forward to late January-early February 2012, when Bryan Kirkwood announces that Patsy Palmer would be taking an extended maternity leave of one year, instead of the requisite six months. Shortly after that, he announced that Sid Owen would also be taking a sabbatical of a year in order to work on a water charity of which he was a patron. His last word on the subject was that "Ricky and Bianca would be back on our screens sometime in 2012."
No cause for alarm ... until Palmer issued a statement through her agent, saying that whilst she was on maternity leave, she realised her contract was up for renewal and decided not to renew it. In an interview with Hello! magazine, she confirmed that her decision was influenced by the babyswap storyline, and that she had decided not to return, that she had finished her contract with Eastenders and didn't want to be tied to anything. In fact, if and when the show decided to have her back, she'd consider it, but at that moment, her family was the most important thing. Furthermore, in February of that year, Palmer admitted that she didn't miss Eastenders in the least. As if to dot an "i" and cross a further "t", later in 2011, she fell pregnant again, but miscarried. If that pregnancy had proven viable, Patsy Palmer would have never returned.
What prompted her to do so was Kirkwood offering her a contract allowing her to work six months and then take six months off. She calls it a "working mum's contract" and wouldn't all we working mothers like to have such a thing!
But now we know the truth about Sid Owen, whose departure at the beginning of this year in the wake of Pat's death left many viewers with mouths agape wondering if Ricky had, indeed, left for good (via his receiving Julia's Theme upon his departure), I have to ask what is the point of keeping Bianca afloat? I know the general opinion was that Ricky, without Bianca, didn't work; but when Ricky returned for the few episodes surrounding Janine's wedding, he worked very well as a single dad coping with small children - something we've never seen on Eastenders before. Yet in the Eastenders redesigned by Kirkwood, male characters - unless they are Brannings - are pejorative things, and mouthy, chavvy women are the strong'uns. So Ricky is sacrificed, and we all await the return of Bianca, the Bianca whom most viewers lately described as "vile."
How can she work? She's another eternal victim, blaming everything but her own fecklessness and lack of common sense for her poverty-stricken plight. She's alienated her uncle, Ian - who, by all accounts, will be going through an emotional trauma of his own when she reappears; she's alienated her sister-in-law, Janine, who actually did try to look after Bianca's brood, but who will also be dealing with personal matters and preparing to leave right about the time Bianca returns. She was caught by the market inspector stealing from a trader, so employment on a stall is out of the question. She's a single mum with three school-aged kids, one of whom is a rude little wotsit. What man - and there are limited men on the Square at the moment, would hitch his wagon to this rude mare?
There are rumours abounding that Ms Newman is reviewing Palmer's contract. Let's hope Lorraine shows more balls than she's shown in not changing any of the crapiola storylines left over by Birkwood, and calls time on Bianca's character. This time, for good.
But Ricky and Bianca weren't the only porkie pie viewers were served by Bryan Kirkwood. There was the little matter of Jane Beale.
Laurie Brett was another pregnant actress in 2011, who left early in the year on maternity leave. Her leaving line was Jane's divorce from Ian being finalised. Jane received the cafe as part of her settlement and also got Julia's Theme as she walked away from the Square. Six months later, in November 2011, Laurie Brett returned, with an announcement from Bryan Kirkwood, that Brett would be returning for three months, then taking a sabbatical of a year in order to spend time with her new daughter. Jane returned, found Ian with Mandy and Mas divorced from Zainab, and she promptly succumbed to her passion for Mas.
However, she left at the end of January for a new job as a sous-chef in Cardiff. Sounded pretty final, especially since her boss told her there was a chance she'd go to Paris to work in a year's time. Well, it was. Final, I mean.
After Brett left, again leaving viewers scratching their heads in wonder, it was announced that she was joining the cast of Waterloo Road. It was then that Brett announced that she had actually called time on Jane because the character had been running around in circles for sometime, and she felt it was time to put an end to her tenure.
Here's the actual truth behind Bryan Kirkwood's lie: Laurie Brett took her maternity leave, knowing that when she returned, she'd have three months left on her current contract. She agreed to return for that, but decided she didn't want to renew it. She left.
Now, it looks as if the whole damned shabang has gone into bunker mode, and I'm left wondering about the two most recent high profiled imminent departures. Although the Twittersphere was alight for weeks with rumours of June Brown's departure, it was finally announced, just a mere two weeks before she left, that Brown was taking a six-month leave in order to travel and finish her autobiography. At first, that was denied by Brown, who stated she didn't know how long she'd be gone, that she missed the company of Barbara Windsor and Pam St Clement, and that Polly Perkins was also leaving (something we'd not yet been told), so she was at a bit of a loss, thought she'd do some different things and finish an autobiography she started in 2003.
Dot was spirited off to visit her granddaughter in her aged mini cooper in the dead of night with little fanfare. I still am suspicious that she will return, and I could see the sneaks now in power at Eastenders fobbing us off with this lie and a low-key departure in order to stem any mass pandemonium radged up by the tabloids about the state of things at Eastenders.
Ditto the departure of Jo Joyner. Please note: Joyner has not renewed her contract. That doesn't mean she's taking a break; it means she's leaving. As much as she says she's going to return, that really isn't down to her - it's down to Lorraine Newman, or whoever will be in charge when they decide that it really might be interesting to have Tanya pop up on the Square again. That could be in two years' time, it could be in five years' time, it could be never. One thing for certain - people who say she's taking a six-month break or a year's break are deluding themselves. Joyner is leaving. And the PR Department are doing for her, exactly what they did for Letitia Dean when she left in 2006, after a slew of actors in major parts decamped during Kate Harwood's era: They've put out the meme that she's "taking a break." Well, I'd remind everyone that Joyner wants to be at home with her very small children (like Palmer), there's been no talk of any "working mum's contract" for her, and Dean's "break" was six years long.
Think about that.
Still, we're left with a show chocked full of characters who seem to be extremely unpopular with long-term and even some newer viewers - Derek, Whitney, the new and immensely hateful Kat, the steroid-enhanced half of the Goon Brothers - all characters who aren't working with viewers and who aren't served with any workable sort of scripts or storylines. We're left with an ever-increasing family of sleazeballs, the Brannings, whom we're supposed to accept as the main family on the Square, which include a plank of wood and a young sapling, both hired for their looks and not for their talent.
I don't know how Newman is going to sort the mess out that Kirkwood left. Speaking after the BSAs, Rita Simons and Scott Maslen stated that she wasn't going to change any of the scripts that had been blocked by Kirkwood until August; now the story is that she's not changing any of the storylines he's left intact for the rest of the year, when it would be well within her remit to do so, and when she can easily see that what Kirkwood did wasn't at all in the interest of the programme, but only in the interest of his ego.
I worry for Eastenders, because I remember when Brookside was outstripping Eastenders, Corrie and Emmerdale back in 1993, and ten years later, it was toast.
If nothing else, after all of Kirkwood's lies, Lorraine Newman, who is really a public servant paid by the public purse - i.e, us - owes the viewers of the programme she fronts more than a bit of honesty.
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