19 April 2005 at 13:26
EastEnders bosses seem convinced the best way to revive their flagging soap is to hammer a nail in their own coffin, cover it with petrol, then jump in the grave while smoking the ratings figures as a makeshift Cuban cigar.
Sweethearts, listen, it’s not gonna work.
Bring back Steve McFadden as Phil Mitchell, a man who makes flatulence look like a viable career option. Then wheel in his onscreen brother Grant, aka hard man (please, he’ll burst into tears if he drops his choc-ice) Ross Kemp.
This, EastEnders producers and potential BBC bird feed, is about as bad an idea as you’ve ever had. Really.
"The Mitchell brothers go together like bacon and eggs," blabbed some ‘insider’. "To have them back again is pure TV gold."
Bacon and eggs? TV gold? How so exactly, because the soap was doing so well before they left? Maybe Ross Kemp could bring some added gravitas from the slow burning debris he made over at ITV? Doubtful. Ultimate Force would make a MRSA patient laugh. In the middle of their eighth bout of treatment with Timmy Mallet playing the tuba in their ear.
Six years Ross Kemp has been away from EastEnders. In that time Gary Glitter could have made it onto prime time television and stayed there. There’s no telling the BBC of course, they know everything. The odd quirky comedy here and there and its back to recycling the same old storylines for the most tired soap in TV history.
It was once fun once, maybe even good, but now EastEnders looks more and more likely to drown in its own arrogance.
Not to win a Bafta is bad enough, but to not even be nominated? That’s not going to ensure anyone a singing Christmas special now is it?
Flush into the mix
Barbara Windsor's wretched return in a few weeks, all ready to celebrate her 200th face lift, and we'll give the whole sorry mess two years. May seem like a long time, but that’s an awful lot of ITV contracts to sort out.
Just think,
Wendy Richards as D.I. Miserable in the
I’ll Never Stop Bloody Complaining Mysteries. Or
Adam Woodyatt in a special on-off drama entitled
Shifty: Time for the Job Centre.
Natalie Cassidy'll be lucky if she gets to clean Parkinson's bidet.
It’s over, guys, so over.
[story by Chris Laverty]
Hecklerspray
