Jean Slater

boomp3.com

 

In the absence of a proper article, a brief and shoddily-made tribute to everyone’s favourite fictional schizophrenic.

Normal service will be resumed…

EastEnders

As if we weren’t bored enough by it in the first place, Mad May returns to the Square to try and nick Dawn’s fucking baby. Again.

Now – this baby used to be nothing but a source of stress for young, crumple-faced Dawn who would attempt to foist it on any willing baby-sitter going so she could go out with unrealistic best mates Shabs and Carlie on the razz. Now that Carlie’s conveniently disappeared and Shabnam appears to have been locked in a basement, the coast is clear for Dawn to act like a responsible mother again – one who actually gives a shit about her baby. And as we all know, this means guaranteed boredom for those of us who watch this crap as May – the Howard’s Way type actress who looks like she’s on the wrong set – turns the lunacy up to eleven and we’re shown a bajillion shots of Dawn running away from something uninteresting. Hoo-fucking-ray. They’re trailing this rubbish as though we’re all excited about it. It’s a fucking disgrace.

It was entirely unrealistic in the first place. May and her husband could easily have adopted from overseas what with them both being rich, young professionals. Why would they want an infant from a working-class gene pool? If they were going to go for a peasant child, it might as well be an ethnic one, like Madonna’s or Jolie’s.

So what involving storylines have we got to keep us going while all this sprog-theft is going on? Since Bradley and Stacey broke up – nothing whatsoever. It’s enough to make you miss Max Branning.

Heather and Minty and Gal and Shirl and Bobby bleeding Davro can get lost. The Slaters are relying on schizophrenic Jean for laughs, which seems a bit off. Bradley’s starring in the most ill-thought out Indecent Proposal thread going – and even if the Millers ever find that lottery ticket after all this time, I’ve lost all patience by now. Phil Mitchell must’ve exploded, as he’s not been huffing and wheezing behind his bar for weeks.

And in other news – where on God’s green earth is Billy? Apparently he turned up for five-a-side training a week ago and he’s been mentioned in conversation as though he’s been about – but clearly Perry Fenwick is on some kind of sabbatical as I’ve seen hide nor hair of his E.T-shaped head for months. He’s even taken Honey and his kids with him, though admittedly that’s actually a massive blessing.

Despite the fact I’ve said this a million times before and never come good on the promise – if things don’t get spicy – and fast – I’m leaving Walford for good.

EastEnders

 

I’ve been to a few weddings I didn’t want to go to. I’m scheduled for more next year, no doubt. And I bet you are too. Sometimes, if it’s a family do, there’s no getting out of it, as the recriminations just aren’t worth the bloody hassle. The same goes for funerals – if Grandma kicks the bucket, obligation demands you don your black suit and race off to whatever godforsaken part of the country they’re burying her in.

With this in mind, will tonight’s wedding between Bradders and Stacey see a glorious reunion of two disparate clans – The Brannings and the Slaters? Will Kat ‘n’ Alfie will be there? Will Little Mo make an appearance? And Lynne, and Belinda? Zoe? Maybe not, as I recall she had a bit of bother over being an accessory to murder a while back.

And on the Branning side? Well let’s not forget Carol Jackson, Robbie, Sonia ‘n’ Martin, Bianca … maybe even little mop-haired Billy, yeah?

That’s what happens at family weddings, yeah?

Well no, not in EastEnders they don’t. Even though the soap purports to being set in the real world, events like weddings and funerals show it up for the lying scam it really is. Last night’s hen night was a case in point. We’ve all witnessed the packs of drunken fillies wobbling around town centres, the bride tarted up in veil and L-plates as she blunders from Yates’s to Wetherspoons to All Bar One with her dreadful coven of twenty-something mates.

Yet Stacey’s hen night (and lest we forget Stacey looks and dresses just like one of those girls on a Blackpool hen night we’ve all seen on Street Crime UK) took place in a house with various available cast members. Unlike on a real hen night, Stacey’s do featured her mad mother, her great aunt, her fiance’s icy mother, her lover’s wife, and, for some reason, that idiot Honey and that other idiot Asian girl whose name escapes me. Great night, Stace – no wonder you went to the pub.

And in the pub, there was Bradders, having his stag night. Bradders, who works in the City and presumably has lots of smarmy City-Boy friends, chose to spend his stag night with the likes of Charlie, Billy, and those two veteran ‘Stenders stag nighters, Minty ‘n’ Garry. Where were Bradley’s mates? Don’t you usually go out on your stag night with your mates? Out and about – to different pubs? Then get tied to a lamppost, starkers, in Dundee?

The problem the folks behind EastEnders have in trying to connect its world with our reality is that their cast of characters regularly bugger off and don’t come back. Thus, when it comes to family occasions (weddings, funerals, Christmas, births, christenings etc.), we have the odd phenomenon of a character’s supposed loved-ones not being there for them through good times and bad. Off the top of my head, here’s a few examples of how callous your relatives are if you live in Albert Square …

Grant was happy to come back for two weeks to help his brother out over that Johnny Allen business, but couldn’t be arsed to get on a plane to come back when it came to the small matter of Phil getting married.

David Wicks just couldn’t spare the time to go to his best friend Barry’s funeral. In fact, David couldn’t even be bothered to go to Roy’s funeral – his friend and biggest contact in the motor trade.

Cathy, loving mother that she was, clearly didn’t grasp the concept of airports when her only son got married, got shot, got married, had kids, went bankrupt, grew a moustache etc etc. For that matter, for quite a while until his off-screen death, Pete Beale couldn’t be arsed with Ian either.

Pauline, matriarch of the Square, uber-family woman, keep the faaaaamily together, faaaamily, faaaaamily, faaaamily woman extraordinaire, couldn’t even lure her daughter back to London by having a brain hemorrhage and dying at Christmas. Mind you, Michelle (that bitch), was reluctant to hand over her money to Virgin Atlantic even when her dad died – and he was the nice one of the bunch. Ditto her brother’s death, her other brother’s marriage, her best friend’s wedding (s?), her best friend’s husband’s funeral, or her best friend’s father’s (and father of her child’s) funeral. The cow.

So what hope, then, that we’ll see a reunion of those screeching harridan Slater sisters and those bothersome Jackson buggers? Don’t hold your breath, Stacey.