There's a hot debate raging right now on Digital Spy Troll Fora regarding Sharon. The title of the thread (currently running to four pages) is Is Letitia Dean Giving the Writers One More Chance?
The discussion has devolved into a verbose and well-constructed argument between the contributor Broken Arrow (for whom, in this instance, I'll forgive his Mitchell hatred) and some heretofore unknown Celtic blowhard fanboi called Auntie Soaper. Yes, I imagine this person is a man.
The latter bears a Sharon-hatred heretofore unknown and unseen on these fora. In Soaper's opinion, Sharon is a dead loss and cause of much of what is wrong in EastEnders nowadays. In fact, Soaper lives for the day when he/she reads a thread on DS saying Letitia Dean has been sacked.
Well, that won't happen.
Dean is an original character - one of only two remaining on the programme. And there is still room for her developmental arc.
Let's establish a few facts about her latest return. First, she didn't ask to return, like the bankrupt Bev Callard did regarding her impending Corrie return. Dean was asked by John Yorke, Kate Harwood's predecessor. In fact, it took Yorke one year to negotiate the sort of deal which satisfied Dean before she agreed to return.
In the months before her return, Steve McFadden waxed lyrical, saying he was "over the moon" that she was returning. Dean, for her part, waxed just as lyrical about the prospect of working with McFadden again. To say she's unhappy at the moment would be an understatement.
In the months before her return, Yorke left the BBC and Sharon's return was left to be crafted by people who either didn't know her character at all, didn't care about the show's history or didn't want to know. A chance remark made by Dean to Simon Ashdown about wanting Sharon to have a female friend gave him the necessary leeway to create TanyaLite and to make Sharon BFFs with Tanya and a bedfellow with Jack.
Sharon would never think of becoming friends with someone as shallow and hypocritical as Tanya. She wouldn't have jumped into bed with a stranger on her first night back in Walford, and she would be advocating someone like Kirsty, not being a bitch to her.
The writers have served Sharon badly, and the actress knows it. At best, she's an adequate actress, but at the moment, she's phoning in the lines.
As for her salvation, Soaper seems to get riled at the prospect that DTC might choose to save the woman he describes as his favourite character. Why not? Newman made no secret of the fact that her primary objective was to redeem Kat, and since January, we've had Saint Kat the Counsellor rammed down our throats to the extent that characters who had a genuine shot at centre stage, like Roxy, have been sacrificed. With Newman concentrating on Kat, Ashdown could push the Brannings even further.
Kat's story arc finished in 2005, when she and Alfie left happily. To even think about having Kat return, alone, pregnant, widowed or divorced, would have shot the story arc which ended her character. Kat, without Alfie, as much as many people don't like to hear it, won't work. That's why Jessie Wallace "left by mutual consent" when Shane Richie resigned in 2005. Too many people think Kat can go back to what she was in 2000, when in reality, she's now a fortysomething woman who dresses like a sad old slapper and has a fishwife's gob.
When Sharon left in early 2006, TPTB had offered to double her salary had she stayed. She wanted a break from the show and six years down the line, we're asked to accept Sharon as the fraught, over-protective mother of Dennis Rickman's posthumous child.
Had Tony Jordan got his way in 2005, "Denny" would have been Grant Mitchell's son, conceived over the Vic's kitchen table and passed off as Dennis's son before he died. Imagine the impact that would have now. Be that as it may, the kid, yes, is bringing Sharon down. But that's as much because of the casting of Harry Hickles, a baby Justin Bieber, as it is to the writers, who clearly don't know what to do or how to write for Sharon. So she's being left in the background. Isolated and foreign.
Soaper thinks Billy Mitchell has more right to be in the programme than Sharon. Maybe Soaper would like to realise that without Sharon, there would be no Billy Mitchell. The Mitchells were created for Sharon as her next level of development after the departure of her parents from Walford in 1989. The fact that Sharon has been the only woman Phil Mitchell has ever loved and has never attained has been the single most important guiding force in his life since the 1990s.
She's there, just out of reach, and if she's out of sight, she's never out of mind. Shirley recognised this as early as 2010, when she recognised that Phil's addiction problems would never have occurred had Sharon been around. She recognised this further when he couldn't promise her fidelity in 2011. When asked if he'd have been unfaithful to Sharon, he couldn't answer her, because she already knew that the answer would have been negative.
Shirley's lived with the ghost of Sharon as long as she's been involved with Phil, so to say Sharon has no future on the Square is to talk utter rubbish.
She's back. She's one of the original cast. She's got ultimate history in the Square, and she needs to be with Phil. And Grant needs to return - loads of mileage there.
As for Soaper talking about Coronation Street, a programme which has characters who've been there decades, moving forward, that person is talking out of his arse when he refers to EastEnders. People like Phil, Peggy, Ian, Carol, Billy and, yes, Sharon, are necessary to move the programme forward. As in Coronation Street, they move into another level - a parenting level or a chorus level or whatever, and make way for the new generation who'll refer to them. This is part of Corrie's success and the reason for EastEnders' failure. There's a blend of generations on Coronation Street that doesn't occur on EastEnders.
A Tyrone tipping credit to Jack and Vera, Nick Tilsley's interaction with his mother and grandmother, Rita mentoring Tina. In EastEnders, it's either yoof week or filler episodes.
Sharon is necessary. Soaper's opinion is not.
The discussion has devolved into a verbose and well-constructed argument between the contributor Broken Arrow (for whom, in this instance, I'll forgive his Mitchell hatred) and some heretofore unknown Celtic blowhard fanboi called Auntie Soaper. Yes, I imagine this person is a man.
The latter bears a Sharon-hatred heretofore unknown and unseen on these fora. In Soaper's opinion, Sharon is a dead loss and cause of much of what is wrong in EastEnders nowadays. In fact, Soaper lives for the day when he/she reads a thread on DS saying Letitia Dean has been sacked.
Well, that won't happen.
Dean is an original character - one of only two remaining on the programme. And there is still room for her developmental arc.
Let's establish a few facts about her latest return. First, she didn't ask to return, like the bankrupt Bev Callard did regarding her impending Corrie return. Dean was asked by John Yorke, Kate Harwood's predecessor. In fact, it took Yorke one year to negotiate the sort of deal which satisfied Dean before she agreed to return.
In the months before her return, Steve McFadden waxed lyrical, saying he was "over the moon" that she was returning. Dean, for her part, waxed just as lyrical about the prospect of working with McFadden again. To say she's unhappy at the moment would be an understatement.
In the months before her return, Yorke left the BBC and Sharon's return was left to be crafted by people who either didn't know her character at all, didn't care about the show's history or didn't want to know. A chance remark made by Dean to Simon Ashdown about wanting Sharon to have a female friend gave him the necessary leeway to create TanyaLite and to make Sharon BFFs with Tanya and a bedfellow with Jack.
Sharon would never think of becoming friends with someone as shallow and hypocritical as Tanya. She wouldn't have jumped into bed with a stranger on her first night back in Walford, and she would be advocating someone like Kirsty, not being a bitch to her.
The writers have served Sharon badly, and the actress knows it. At best, she's an adequate actress, but at the moment, she's phoning in the lines.
As for her salvation, Soaper seems to get riled at the prospect that DTC might choose to save the woman he describes as his favourite character. Why not? Newman made no secret of the fact that her primary objective was to redeem Kat, and since January, we've had Saint Kat the Counsellor rammed down our throats to the extent that characters who had a genuine shot at centre stage, like Roxy, have been sacrificed. With Newman concentrating on Kat, Ashdown could push the Brannings even further.
Kat's story arc finished in 2005, when she and Alfie left happily. To even think about having Kat return, alone, pregnant, widowed or divorced, would have shot the story arc which ended her character. Kat, without Alfie, as much as many people don't like to hear it, won't work. That's why Jessie Wallace "left by mutual consent" when Shane Richie resigned in 2005. Too many people think Kat can go back to what she was in 2000, when in reality, she's now a fortysomething woman who dresses like a sad old slapper and has a fishwife's gob.
When Sharon left in early 2006, TPTB had offered to double her salary had she stayed. She wanted a break from the show and six years down the line, we're asked to accept Sharon as the fraught, over-protective mother of Dennis Rickman's posthumous child.
Had Tony Jordan got his way in 2005, "Denny" would have been Grant Mitchell's son, conceived over the Vic's kitchen table and passed off as Dennis's son before he died. Imagine the impact that would have now. Be that as it may, the kid, yes, is bringing Sharon down. But that's as much because of the casting of Harry Hickles, a baby Justin Bieber, as it is to the writers, who clearly don't know what to do or how to write for Sharon. So she's being left in the background. Isolated and foreign.
Soaper thinks Billy Mitchell has more right to be in the programme than Sharon. Maybe Soaper would like to realise that without Sharon, there would be no Billy Mitchell. The Mitchells were created for Sharon as her next level of development after the departure of her parents from Walford in 1989. The fact that Sharon has been the only woman Phil Mitchell has ever loved and has never attained has been the single most important guiding force in his life since the 1990s.
She's there, just out of reach, and if she's out of sight, she's never out of mind. Shirley recognised this as early as 2010, when she recognised that Phil's addiction problems would never have occurred had Sharon been around. She recognised this further when he couldn't promise her fidelity in 2011. When asked if he'd have been unfaithful to Sharon, he couldn't answer her, because she already knew that the answer would have been negative.
Shirley's lived with the ghost of Sharon as long as she's been involved with Phil, so to say Sharon has no future on the Square is to talk utter rubbish.
She's back. She's one of the original cast. She's got ultimate history in the Square, and she needs to be with Phil. And Grant needs to return - loads of mileage there.
As for Soaper talking about Coronation Street, a programme which has characters who've been there decades, moving forward, that person is talking out of his arse when he refers to EastEnders. People like Phil, Peggy, Ian, Carol, Billy and, yes, Sharon, are necessary to move the programme forward. As in Coronation Street, they move into another level - a parenting level or a chorus level or whatever, and make way for the new generation who'll refer to them. This is part of Corrie's success and the reason for EastEnders' failure. There's a blend of generations on Coronation Street that doesn't occur on EastEnders.
A Tyrone tipping credit to Jack and Vera, Nick Tilsley's interaction with his mother and grandmother, Rita mentoring Tina. In EastEnders, it's either yoof week or filler episodes.
Sharon is necessary. Soaper's opinion is not.
What would you think it was rectoned that Sharon and Grant did have a quickie off-screen?
ReplyDeleteWell said. Sharon is probably one of the most important characters of all time. If she does leave then I can imagine she wont be the only one.
ReplyDelete