Overstayed Welcomes

Here's a question Lorraine Newman should be asking herself about certain characters on the programme:-

 You see, it's all very well and good getting rid of the likes of Afia, Rose, Anthony Moon, Andrew and Shenice, but face facts ... there are a fair few A-List characters who need axing.

I mean, Syed and Christian leave, but several characters who, at the moment, are displaying an abundance of unpopularity amongst viewers, not only stay on and on and on and on and on, but are given front-and-centre storylines.

As someone who's viewed the show since 1985 and as a licence fee payer, here are my humble suggestions of characters whom Newman really, really, really should consider wielding an axe.

• Kat: As they would say in Brooklyn, New York ... Fuggeddaboutit. She's done. Toast. Dead in the water. Her return in 2010 was unredeemably botched by Kirkwood and co, and she remains a living warning against "fixing" something that isn't broken. This lot of losers not only broke Kat, they destroyed her to the point that most of the viewing public (who were firmly in her corner from 2000-2005) now are literally begging for her to be given short shrift, heavy karma and kicked out of Walford. Soap viewers, most generally, don't like marital cheaters, especially when the person being cheated upon has really done nothing morally wrong. Kat's old trout. She's smelling up the place and should go, giving Alfie a chance to get together and move forward with Roxy. Axing Kat would also mean her satellites - Mo and Jean - could leave with her.
• Derek: This character has never been popular, even though TPTB have done everything in their power to try to make us like him. The hardened and violent gangster was such a caricature that we found it insulting that Kirkwood made Pat shit herself every time she saw him. I mean, this was the woman who stood up to Den Watts, Archie Mitchell, Phil Mitchell and Jonnie Allen - and she's afraid of a cartoon toad like Derek? The more hard man he tried to be, the more he came across as DelBoy on steroids. The only thing missing was his Rodney, which he seems to have found in Joey the Mouth-Breathing Boy. They tried Derek the FAIRMLY man, and that didn't work. And his portrayal of the overbearing bully of a father is less than watchable. But for some reason, TPTB seem to be foisting him on us unremittingly at the moment. I can only hope it means his end is nigh. It should be.
• Jack: A character who was almost redundant the moment he started filming. Yes, we know that part of the reason Jack was created was as a love interest for Ronnie, but the other reason he was created was as a foil for Max - the golden boy to Max's loser, with special emphasis on Jack's successful relationship with Jim Branning as opposed to Max's non-relationship with Jim. But John Bardon had a stroke, and this avenue was never explored. Instead, Jack became the Sperminator, a walking procreative dick whose sole purpose in life was to sleep with and impregnate Mitchell women. He loved Ronnie, but slept with and impregnated her sister and her cousin. Siblings held an interest for Jack, because he also slept with Tanya, when she was still his brother's wife, and - at a drunken low - Tanya's skanky sister, Rainie. Of course, Jack's past as a bent policeman could always be dramatically explored by EastEnders, but that would take some research, integrity and real imagination. Naah ... much easier to leave Jack as the stud king of Walford, when in fact, whilst the actor seems the nicest of people, he's as wooden as a tobacco store Indian.
• Lauren: Lauren has got to be the most entited, the most spoiled, the most selfish and most pointlessly negative youthful character in the history of the programme. OK, EastEnders has never had much to say positively about higher education, but their young characters have previously all been shown to have drive, ambition and purpose. Ian Beale overcame his father's criticism of his chosen career to become a successful entrepreneur and businessman. Michelle Fowler and Sonia Jackson were single teenaged mums who achieved academic and professional qualifications against all odds. Sharon Watts became a businesswoman. Ricky and Bianca married and started a family. Lauren has dropped out of school, is lazy, expects to be treated like an adult, but does nothing to contribute to the family's economic situation. She expects and received money handed to her by her parents for nothing. She shows them scant respect, but expects respect to be given her in spades. She should leave. Besides, she's played by a crap actress who believes her own publicity and who fucking gurns too much.
• Lucy Beale: Another gurner, whose mouth hangs open all the time. Not attractive. Needs acting lessons and FOUR square meals a day. It's absolutely shattering to watch someone as obviousy anorexic as this actress is, and for her to say she has no eating disorder and for the BBC to uphold that claim is disgraceful. There is no muscle tone on her body at all. Besides that, the character being pushed by the EastEnders' PR department as the next Sharon Watts is disgraceful to the original character. Look, Melissa Suffield was a bad actress, and she created adolescent Lucy. Hetti Bywater makes Suffield look like Oscar material.
• Joey Branning: For everyone who thought Tony Discipline was the worst actor ever to grace EastEnders, well ... now we have David Witts. Another ex-underwear model with no acting experience and a girlfriend conveniently on the production crew, this so-called actor should tell EastEnders that casting for looks over talent is wrong, and every time EastEnders willingly goes looking for testosterone, it's epic fail. Witts can't master a Cockney accent, so he spent the first month of his tenure trying to sound like Beppe di Marco's and Steve Owen's lovechild, but no one could understand him. Now he shouts his lines rapidly in something purporting to be Cockney-ese and guess what? Nobody understands his awful diction. Besides, he's another mouth-breather who thinks it looks sexy to loll his tongue from cheek-to-cheek. It just looks retarded. Go now.
• Alice Branning: The word "insipid" was invented for Alice, which is a pity because the actress is one of the few genuinely experienced actors amongst the younger set. However, they've made the character slightly more intelligent than Honey and slightly purer than Litte Mo. Sheltered beyond belief, and feeding upon EastEnders' current belief that if a girl isn't pretty and doesn't drink like a fish, she must be a weird geek. Cruel, EastEnders, and stupid.
• Tyler Moon: Why is he still here? Multiple choice:- (a) his Crown Court case was thrown out; (b) he's just won a soap award; (d) his contrived girlfriend is a cast member; (e) he knows some dirty secrets about significant EastEnders' players; (d) all of the above. The only saving grace is that someone has finally seen fit to move his character into the background. Now maybe they should consign him to the woodwork with all his other friends.
• Whitney Dean: The actress has not only been phoning it in for ages, she's taking the royal piss right now. I've never, in the history of EastEnders, known such an unpopular ingenue character - yet another of the endless cycle of female characters whose bad and inappopriate behaviour is determined and defended by her traumatic past. That Whitney was groomed and abused by a paedo gives her licence to treat people, especially various blokes, like pieces of shit, whilst they're allowed only to worship at her altar. Whitney is, you see, "special." She can behave like a dirty little slut, but you dare not utter those words in accusation. For me, her lowest point came, during "Teen Week" back in May. She'd dumped Fatboy months previous, but she wasn't too proud do storm into McKlunkey's and demand he give her money so she could have a night out on the razz with her likeable (not) mates, Lucy and Lauren. Having secured the money, she then spent the evening snogging Tyler. And has she even thought to return the car Fatboy bought her?
• Fatboy: For acting like a racial stereotype when he thinks he's Ali Gi, who lost relevance decades ago. Fatboy is much more interesting when he drops the patois and becomes Arthur.
• Bianca and her Spawn: Another iconic female character whom Kirkwood spoiled utterly. She's nothing more now than a feckless, irresponsible, immature, loud-mouthed chav, who's totally incapable of disciplining or controlling her children. She was more like a child, herself, under the parenting skills of Pat and/or Carol, and she doesn't work without Ricky. Besides, she's now known as a thief with serious anger management problems. The actress, herself, isn't serious about the role, and one of her kids (Tiffany) is no longer cute or clever.

There ... with all those people gone, a whole lot of money is freed up for creating new characters and hiring good actors to portray them. And a few talented writers wouldn't go amiss either.