The Shirley Carter Show: Little by Little - Review:- 03.02.2014

Here we are in February, the second month of the year. Remember The Branning Show? Well, that got cancelled when the new Messiah rode into town.

Yes, yes, yes ... we know he's not the Messiah, but he doesn't, and when he decrees a character "iconic," well, then ... amen. So be it.

And so it came to pass that The Lord Messiah Dominic decreeth that ye characters of Shirley and Stacey be herewith known as icons. Ne'mind Sharon and Phil and Dot and Ian - you know, the characters even non-viewers equate with EastEnders since the days when God was a boy.

Nope, in the Gospel according to St Dom, we plebs have to worship at the altar of a murderer and a moocher. In Dom's world, the Carters are the Praetorian Guard, Ronnie Mitchell is Mother Theresa and Lauren Branning is a Vestal Virgin.

Here's a Bible lesson (St Dom's version) of "one of the best television actors" essentially playing Stacey Slater by Another Name in the 1950s.

I'm sure Turner had a similar line on EastEnders.

Vey fink I'm an unfit muvver, vey'll take mah bay-bay!

Yes, the One-Trick Pony is back once more, and her return is imminent. After three years of playing Stacey-Slater-by-Another-Name-Does-Comedy, Stacey-Slater-by-Another-Name-Does-Horror, Stacey-Slater-by-Another-Name-Does-the-Army and Stacey-Slater-by-Another-Name-Does-Radio, Lacey Turner is back to play Stacey-Slater-Murderer-Homewrecker-and-Ultimate-Victim-Does-Walford. Again.

Because she's iconic, you know. Like Shirley. That's what the Messiah tells us.

Two Selfish People.

Really, David Beale Wicks is the most transparent of people. Not only has he not changed from the first time he appeared in the 1990s, but he's also very much like his brother, Ian. 

Both men have women-dependencies and hate the thought of being on their own. Both men treat the women in their lives as objects, whilst at the same time assuring them that whatever selfish motives Ian or David effects, they're for the good and well-being and love of Denise or Carol or whoever makes them horny at the moment. And they do it all with charming and innocent aplomb.

The question remains as to why David didn't propose to Carol until after her cancer had been diagnosed. In fact, David didn't ramp up his pursuit of Carol to the next gear until he'd heard she'd been diagnosed with cancer. Maybe he was shocked into acting, maybe he felt he owed her this much, but something niggles me about this storyine.

Tonight, when David and Carol - two insufferably selfish characters - were arguing over this proposal at the Butcher-Jackson-Beake abode, David referenced that he and Carol had been "off-and-on" for decades. Not true.

They had a one-off in their teens (in the Seventies); they had pity sex for one weekend in the 1990s and romped the bed with comfort sex for a couple of weeks after Pat's death. Between David's being ordered into exile by his mother and his aunt for sleeping with Cindy Beale and busting up Ian's marriage and Pat's death, sixteen years elapsed that he never saw Carol or Bianca. And all this bullshit of him having always loved Carol is a tissue of lies. David married Lorraine and lived with her long enough to father two children, before he deserted her and them.

That's another thing that irks me about this sleazy piece of tripe. Not once does he ever refer to his son, Joe, who must be in his early thirties by now. He left Joe, who was mentally ill, as a fifteen year-old crying after him in the rain, and he never looked back. Yet now, it's all about Bianca, who's just as devious and self-serving as he.

David's by-word in his previous existence on the show was "I don't do commitment." It's still true. Carol was right in assessing that David is really good with a wife, as long as it's someone else's wife - Ian's wife, Simon's wife, Naomi, who was the wife of his business partner.

God only knows why he proposed to Carol, but I suppose DTC has some idea. I think he would like us to believe that David thinks he loves Carol and that love may have been "activated," by her cancer diagnosis. If that is the case, then Nikki's drunken assessment of a "pity proposal" is apt and correct. It certainly struck a nerve with Bianca as well. She knows David as well as any any of his foibles and failings, and the thought must have crossed her mind for her to react so strongly to Nikki's remark.

However, when Bianca confronted David outside the pub, after Carol had left, his assurances to her of his sincerity in his proposal rang hollow, especially this line:-

I don't know why I didn't propose to her before I knew she had cancer.

Because David knows Carol too well too. He knows that once she's let a bloke between her legs, he's the one until he doesn't live up to her exacting standards. Most never do, but as soon as she allows them sexual favours (usually within a week of meeting them), they become - for the time being - the one. David was faced with temptation by Nikki Spraggan, and in order to prove a point, he used Carol's cancer as a means of proposing to her, as a means of making himself look moral, upright and good. This is the same tack he used with Max weeks before, using Carol's illness and his concern to manipulate his way into Max's business. He knew, or he thought, that Carol wouldn't say no to him.

And if that were the case, then Shirley's snippish assessment of his motives was correct.

Say no, did she? Must be hard for blokes like you to find that not every woman is falling at your feet?

Carol's initial rejection clipped David's enormous ego, but Carol's a pushover as well, because she was near to capitulating when she spied  him on the bench licking his wounded pride.

Another observation Nikki drunkenly made rang true tonight as well, and this is why I've had a hard time sympathising with Carol during this storyline, even though I've been through breast cancer, myself. Nikki called the whole thing, including Carol, out for diva behaviour, and that's exactly what she's been throughout all this - using her secret cancer as an excuse to snipe and lash out at people with no explanation and no apology, even lashing out at her family for no reason until in the end, they rally round and mollycoddle her, sharing in her misery, which is what Carol has always wanted. The part about not telling the kids was played for drama too. When exactly was she going to tell them? When her hair starts falling out? When she's puking her guts out after chemo?

Even the accidental broadcast of Carol's cancer announcement was contrived and artificial. 

And now the atrocious Butcher children know. A few days ago, someone remarked about how it's good that  older actors play younger roles. Sometimes this works, but in this case, an 18 year-old James Forde, complete with sideburns and beard stubble isn't as convincing as a downy-faced fifteen year-old, and as Maisie Smith fast approaches puberty, a childlike onesie and her affecting the voice and behaviour or an eight year-old, who's supposed to be ten years old borders on the obscene.

Tiffany is EastEnders' Ches-neh - cute child, awkward adolescent who'll morph into a plain-faced adult.

Here's betting that David is off to accidentally on purpose run into Nikki.

And speaking of Nikki, who's a brilliant combination of all the good aspects of Sam Mitchell and Mandy Salter, she's lonely. That's why she's coming onto David, who encouraged this unwittingly by inviting her into a situation in order to undermine Terry and to make Bianca jealous. She was drunk and she spoke, what was essentially the truth about the way Bianca and co were treating the situation. Carol's cancer was caught early. It's treatable, and curable. Instead, the chav Butchers were milking the tragedy of the situation.

I'd like to know more about Nikki's life with Terry, based on some of the things that have been said since she arrived - that she kicked Terry out; that Terry always impulsively fell in love with other women. Terry implied tonight that she wanted a career in travel, yet when did she begin this career? She's had two children within six years of each other. Did she interrupt this career for childbirth or did she go into this after the birth of her last child? What's obvious is that she is missing her children and she still has feelings for Terry.

What's also obvious is that she'll have sex with David Beale Wicks.

The Shirley Show.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Shirley Carter Redemption Half-Hour. Tonight, we see how Shirley identifies with Carol Jackson, a woman to whom she's not spoken two words since Carol returned to the Square in 2010.

Carol will be all right. She's tough as old boots, that one.

Of course, we're reminded of Shirley's "cancer scare" back in 2007, the one where Phil held her hand. Whenever the show wants to make a brittle woman seem vulnerable, they have her find a lump in her breast. Tonight's epiphany moment in DTC's quest to make this atrociously divisive character into heroine and star-of-the-show material came when Shirley demurely retired upstairs to reflect on the fact that she once had a breast lump, only to be joined by Linda, incongruously attired in a weird tutu for a bonding moment. Linda assures Shirley that Shirley has "family" now, who'd at least give her a ride to the hospital. Har-dee-har.

So everyone comes around to rally with the Shirley show, except the unseen Dean, who, when Shirley rang him, promptly hung up on her. Good.

Moving right along in the Carter domination of the Square, we see the abysmal Dexter making an awful move on Nancy. Now, after a shaky start, Nancy's settled down, but pairing her with a cross between a Klingon and Will Smith is a mistake. He's inherited the mantle of worst actor on the show, and his cocky demeanor and self-serving behaviour sucks. He should have been axed with his parents, but since he's a quota hiring anyway, he's got to stick around for political correctness. Besides, to our misfortune, he's won an award.

Piss.

And the totally gratuitous scene in the Vic's cellar, where we have yet another unnecessary shirtless shot of some little shit, was embarrassingly bad. Maddie Hill and Khali Best both graduated from the same polytechnic university. It gives a false impression of superiority to the uni's drama department that these two people are alumni, when they are, in effect, the two worst actors on the show.

So not only is Dexter being ingratiated into the Carters (meaning more screentime), it also involves the Carters in the Masoods' situation.

Tamwar Is Alive!

In another place and time, Jay would be conflicted in being attracted to Nancy whilst wanting to remain loyal to Abi, but it's not Jay in this storyline, it's Dexter. And in another place and time, it would have been Fatboy who happened upon a drunken Mas, lying beaten in the alleyway.

Instead, it was Dexter and Nancy, one of whom has had no previous contact with Tamwar at all and the other who's only known him a few days at most.

In fact, I liked the interaction between Nancy and Tamwar far more than what they're foisting on us with Nancy and shitbreath Dexter. I actually liked her telling Tamwar that if her father were in such a situation as Mas was, she'd want to know.

The Masood scenes carried this episode. The descent of Masood into drunken abandon due to a variety of factors but due primarily to Carol's dumping of him and Shabnam's adverse reaction is truly saddening. What wasn't was Whitney's asinine remark about Masood's condition, observing that Carol was better off not being involved with "someone like Masood."

Pardon? "Someone like Masood" would be a solid rock of support for Carol. Instead, she's ready to commit to someone she's known all her life to be feckless, who's only proposing to her now to make a point with a woman to whom he's attracted and to make himself feel good.

It was only a matter of a short time before the theft in the market office would be discovered, and that the fact that there was no forced entry meant either that Aleks or Tamwar had been careless or a thief. Of course, Mas's contrived revelation about the strongbox was the oldest revelatory trick in the book, but it brought out a more intriguing and lively reaction from Tamwar than I've seen since before Yusef came on the scene.

Masood a bad husband? Not really, even taking the awful younger woman scenario of last year into account. Masood a bad father? Not in the least. Masood a bad Muslim? That's debatable. I always thought of Masood as the practical Muslim in the middle of Ajay's overt secularism and Imzamam's fundamentalism.

But the whacking of Tamwar was interesting. Tamwar now knows his father is a thief, or at least desperated enough to steal. Does he realise that Mas stole his savings?

Spot the Stupid.

Bianca in graphically relating a sexual moment that didn't take place between Whitney and Johnnie or Linda in grasping at straws that Johnnie's homosexuality is only the proverbial phase?

Linda, hands down, on the basis of the ludicrous moment at the jukebox.

Mick should just bin his sister and his wife and run the place on his own.