Playing Happy Families in Walford
Faces Change, But Names Stay The Same
By Sherry Chiger
If, as an American EastEnders fan, you were to catch an episode of
EastEnders in the UK today, you'd probably find yourself wondering,
Who the heck are all these people? They have the same surnames as the
lead characters in the episodes airing in the States—Mitchell, Slater,
Beale, Banning—but they definitely aren't the same characters.
During the past few years EE has introduced new members of
several core families. In some of the instances, the appearance of the
characters made sense. But in others, there was a clear sense of
desperation. (Okay, here come the spoilers!) For instance, when Peggy
and Phil had to leave London and the Queen Vic in a hurry following
Phil's near-miss of another disastrous marriage, lo and behold! two
long-lost Mitchell cousins arrived, ostensibly for the averted
nuptials—although neither Peggy nor Phil recognised them, let alone
seemed to have recalled inviting them.
Luckily the two Mitchells —sisters Ronnie and Roxy, who'd been
running a pub in Ibiza but were apparently just as happy to take
temporary charge of the Vic in Peggy and Phil's absence —keep up the
fine Mitchell tradition of boozing, sleeping with inappropriate
partners, feuding with Ian Beale, and generally wreaking havoc. Roxy
in particular is a hoot, the Grant to Ronnie's (slightly) more
sensible Phil. All pushed-up boobs, heavy eyeliner, and swinging gold
hoops, incapable of walking without sashaying, Roxy is pure id. It's
almost inevitable that she is now married to, and carrying the spawn
of, the reigning resident psycho, Sean Slater.
Sean is another new branch on an existing family tree. His
grandmother was Charlie Slater's sister, making him a cousin of the
Slaters Kat, Little Mo, Lynne, and Zoe. He came to the Square about
two years ago, having bumped into his teenage sister Stacey, who had
moved in with Charlie and Mo a few years earlier, after her (and
Sean's) bipolar mother, Jean, had been sectioned—that's
institutionalised to us Yanks. Jean, like Sean, now lives in Walford
as well.
Appearance wise, Stacey in particular fits the Slater bill:
brunette, curvy, partial to short skirts with no stockings (then
again, that describes a sizeable subculture of England). She also has
the Slater sass and the healthy Slater libido (more of which in a
minute). She's surlier than the other Slaters, though, which must have
come from her mother's side of the family. As for Sean, he's so surly
he makes Phil and Grant look like Little Miss Sunshine and Mister
Happy.
Sean was in the armed forces and, like Grant, suffers from mental
problems as a result. But there's also strong evidence that the forces
alone aren't to blame for his hair-trigger temper, fondness of
inflicting bodily harm, and periods of catatonic staring. (The last,
in fact, may be the fault of the actor playing him, Robert Kazinsky,
whose range is closer to that of your local molehill than to the
Rockies or even the Poconos). In fact, Sean is so fearful of having
inherited his mum's mental illness that he all but refuses to have
anything to do with her.
I can't blame him for that—not because we should avoid people
with mental illness, of course, but because Jean is an amazingly
annoying character. Jean's dippiness and fluttery overbearingness are
not symptoms of her illness but of her personality, and it's a shame
that many EE viewers may now think of people with bipolar disorders of
being vaguely inappropriate and fully irksome.
Stacey, on the other hand, is only partially irksome. With her
smart mouth and ballsiness, I think we're meant to find her as
charismatic as Kat. But Kat at least smiled on occasion. I can't
recall seeing Stacey's teeth except when they were bared in a grimace
or a growl. Even her romances don't seem to bring her joy. Maybe it's
because they're ridiculous.
One of the long-running current storylines involves her on-again,
off-again relationship with yet another young sprig from an old family
tree, Bradley Branning. He's a grandson of Jim Branning, which would
make him a nephew of Carol Jackson; his father, Max, another
relatively recent addition to the Square, is Carol's brother, though I
don't recall being aware of his existence back at the wedding of their
sister Suzy, at which Alan proposed to Carol. Then again, back then
Jim Branning was a flaming racist, a figure of hate; he was long since
transformed into a lovable coot, more sinned against than sinning.
(See also: Mitchell, Billy.)
Bradley and Max do bear a physical resemblance to each other.
Both are redheads, in a country where "gingers" are one of the few
minorities it's still okay to malign, and where they are indeed
maligned to a degree that's difficult for an American to understand.
Max is a slick salesman who is surprisingly effective with the ladies,
despite being a) ginger, b) balding, and c) married. Bradley wants to
be slick, but he's a true geek: He goes to Star Trek conventions and
wears plaid short-sleeve shirts. Yet somehow we're supposed to believe
that he and Stacey fell passionately in love, to the point where they
married. Only they broke up for a while between first falling
passionately in love and getting married, at which time Stacey took up
with Max.
The reason I'm giving away so many plot points (I warned you!) is
to demonstrate how artificial some of the goings-on have been. It's
deus ex machina gone wild. And too often, IMHO, the introduction of
long-lost or never-before-mentioned relatives of major characters is
an awkward way of shoehorning in an already awkward plot contrivance.
(Wait till you get to the buried-alive plotline—talk about awkward
shoehorning...)
Where EE has done well with extending the family trees is with
the offspring of several long-standing characters. Sadly, Ben
Mitchell, son of Phil and Lisa (or "the moaner Lisa," as the tabloids
here used to call her), is not an example. His loathing of sport and
his love of dance draw the ire of his father, which would make Ben
sympathetic if he weren't played by such a wooden little actor. (I
don't like running down child performers, so let's see this as my
running down the casting director of EE instead: Was this the best boy
thespian you could find?)
But the now-adolescent children of Ian and Cindy are brilliant,
in terms of characterisation and casting. The kids who play Peter and
Lucy physically resemble their fictional parents: blond, pale,
pleasant looking rather than striking. And Peter resembles Ian in his
desire to toe the line and please his dad. (Ian haters, don't forget
that he started out as a fairly sweet, good-natured kid, anxious to
make dad Pete proud.) Lucy, on the other hand, has Cindy's scheming
gene and Ian's Machiavellian instincts, and Melissa Suffield, who
plays her, makes watching Lucy as much fun as spitting out some of her
lines must be.
The success of these additions to a stalwart Walford family
almost make me wish for the appearance of a teenage Courtney Mitchell.
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