Danny Dyer: East End Boy

by Joe Allan

  Shattered or not, Danny and his screen family – Kellie Bright, Sam Strike and Maddy Hill – took a night off to attend the National Television Awards together on 22 January 2014, where they walked the red carpet to a rapturous reception. Any stress or fatigue they may have been feeling didn’t show, as Danny and the rest of the Carters looked stunning on their first night out together in the public eye.

  In just seven weeks, Danny had filmed nearly thirty episodes, and the media attention his character and new TV family had garnered had put EastEnders well and truly back on the map. And all this before a single second of their performance had been aired. After weeks of the BBC pushing the ‘It’s All About To Change’ tagline in TV spots, magazine features and on billboards, Danny and the rest of the Carters were finally introduced in the closing moments of the show’s Boxing Day episode, with the whole family instantly thrust front and centre in some of the shows most talked-about scenes in years.

  After a teasing glimpse of Danny in an episode just before Christmas, the identity of the Queen Vic’s mystery buyer is finally revealed as its former owner, the Square’s resident bully and self-proclaimed ‘Top Dog’, Phil Mitchell, tries to clear the pub for the new owner’s arrival. As he attempts to strong-arm his vengeful ex-girlfriend, Shirley Carter, out of the door, Danny comes to her aid, asking, ‘Is there a problem?’ Phil replies, ‘I’m just chucking out the rubbish.’ A more forceful Danny says, ‘I wasn’t talking to you,’ and as Shirley moves to stand by his side, she introduces the stranger, ‘Phil, meet Mick – my brother!’

  Within seconds of his arrival, Danny had staked his claim as the new Sheriff of Walford. He had challenged a key figure on the Square and instantly ruffled a few feathers. As introductions go, it was pretty spectacular. The Sun reported, ‘There was none of the coarse language or cocky bravado he has become infamous for as he made his small screen debut.’ It added, noting the new arrival’s impact, ‘Danny was still trending twelve hours after the credits stopped rolling.’ GQ magazine’s website picked up on the nation’s new favourite conversation piece, asking, ‘Did you have a good Dyermas?’, a nod to critic Grace Dent’s ‘Dyermas’ hash tag, created well in anticipation of Danny’s first appearance at Christmas, which continued to trend on Twitter for several days. GQ went on to say, ‘There was only one place to be [over the Christmas period] . . . and it wasn’t Downton Abbey. Albert Square had a new landlord for the Queen Vic and the excitement in living rooms around the country was palpable.’

  As ‘Dyermas’ moved into Boxing Day, it was rechristened ‘Dyer Day’, and Dent herself would describe Danny’s EastEnders entrance in her Guardian column as, ‘a veritable coup’, before singing his praises: ‘I’d rather be stuck in a lift with [Danny] effing and blinding, than with the likes of Benedict Cumberbatch and his ilk who believe the art of chuntering scripts out loud in funny hats and prop department wigs makes them a messianic presence.’ Perhaps a little harsh on Mr Cumberbatch, but there was no getting away from the fact Danny was finally finding some fairly outspoken supporters within the mainstream press. After a brief summary of the current ins and outs on Albert Square, Dent returns to her favourite subject. ‘Did I mention Danny Dyer?’

  Continuing the theme, Filipa Jodelka, in her Guardian World of Lather column, stated, ‘Watching EastEnders at the moment feels like being released from a twenty-stretch in grimy soap jail,’ noting, ‘[Someone has] gone and made it good all of a sudden.’ Rejoicing in what this might mean, she proclaimed, ‘EastEnders will never stop being stupid, but maybe it can stop being insulting and stupid.’

  Even Charlie Brooker, the ultra-harsh TV critic who had mercilessly trashed Danny in print and on several of his television appearances, was warming to his charms. Brooker had previously stated, ‘Dyer’s presence on a movie poster has become a handy visual signifier alerting cinema-goers to the potential substandard quality of the film, unless said cinema-goer is so insanely enamoured with gangsters, football hooligans and rough diamonds who swear a lot, that they’ll watch literally anything in which any of these elements feature.’ But during his BBC2 show, Weekly Wipe, he re-christened Danny’s character as ‘Git Carter’, saying, ‘The old soap osmosis kicked in and, before long, I was caring about what happened to the characters.’ Soon he was forced to admit, ‘Rather than watching EastEnders so I could laugh at Danny Dyer, I was watching EastEnders because of Danny Dyer. He’s a canny choice because there’s something weirdly watchable about him.’

  But not everyone was so positive. One tweeter worried Danny might struggle in a family friendly setting, saying,

  ‘Danny Dyer without the bad language is like a tub of Quality Streets without the green triangles,’ while another questioned his suitability considering his persona and some of his more widely publicized press stories: ‘People have short memories when it comes to Danny Dyer. I won’t be watching EastEnders with him in it. #gross.’

  While the very nature of social media today means everyone’s opinion is given equal weight, it would seem the balance was definitely on the positive side. Anyone who wasn’t fully supportive of Danny was at least curious as to where his story was headed and, suddenly, EastEnders seemed to be talked about again – the hype had translated into something concrete.

  The Carters were up and running. Dropped directly into the heart of the show, the family were set to remain the main storyline focus for the next three or four weeks. Mick and Linda were soon established as a loving couple, ferociously loyal and dedicated to their children. The strength of the pair was best illustrated by a scene early in the first few scenes of their arrival. Amid the chaos of the Carters’ first day as owners of the Queen Vic, Linda turns to Mick and says, ‘A new start you said, a new adventure,’ to which Mick replies, ‘As long as I’ve got you and you’ve got me, we can do anything.’

  Establishing Mick’s character as an individual was equally well handled, with some very deft writing. It wasn’t long before viewers saw that Mick wasn’t afraid to rub people up the wrong way to protect what was his and shield those he held closest. Danny’s insistence that Mick was ‘in touch with his feminine side’ was neatly demonstrated when, in the opening shots of what was only his second full episode, Mick is seen preparing the family breakfast while wearing Linda’s pink dressing gown – a running gag that was to feature in several more episodes to come. This was an image that was hard to reconcile with the star of movies such as Outlaw and Vendetta, and served to demonstrate that the soap’s new star wasn’t as one-dimensional as many had believed.

  Mick Carter’s character was, if nothing else, a refreshing change of pace for Danny, and his down-to-earth, no-nonsense approach to the part was swiftly winning him the sort of acclaim that had long since been absent from his film work. In Mick Carter, he had been handed a solid, well-rounded role and given some meaty scripts from the start, yet everyone involved in bringing him into the EastEnders fold knew the magic ingredient was Danny Dyer himself.

  But the actor refused to take all the credit himself. He wanted to make it clear that his decision to join EastEnders in the first place had been as a direct response to the enthusiasm and reassurance of Dominic Treadwell-Collins. Danny made it known he had every confidence in Treadwell-Collins, believing the executive producer understood what he was capable of as an actor and only wanted to make the most of his abilities. He insisted any initial doubts he’d had in his own mind about joining the show were put at ease by the assurance he would not be entering the Square alone. Danny was quick to remind everyone that his seamless introduction should be seen as a success for the whole of his new family unit, telling the Radio Times in no uncertain terms, ‘I’m nothing without the rest of the Carter family.’

  Summing up the experience of his first few months to Digital Spy, Danny said, ‘I’m enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would. I thought I’d struggle a bit, but I’m absolutely loving working on EastEnders.’

  Introducing all the Carters would take another few weeks, but with
Mick and Linda quickly settled into the show, it wasn’t long before their kids, Johnny (Sam Strike) and Nancy (Maddy Hill) were taking centre stage and making their own mark on Albert Square. With the immediate Carter family now all living under the same roof, the real drama could begin.

  As Mick prepares to open the doors of the Queen Vic for the very first time, he asks, ‘Shall we put ourselves on the map?’ before proclaiming, ‘The age of the Carters is upon us.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  A FATHER AND SON STORY

  It was clear from the moment of their arrival in Walford that the Carter family were bringing with them more than their fair share of baggage, and every one of them had something to hide. However, nothing stays buried for long on the Square. Even the seemingly solid foundation of Mick and Linda’s marriage had its secrets.

  The Carters’ next big storyline, and one of the key story elements that had helped seal Danny’s decision to join EastEnders in the first place, would involve Mick and Linda’s youngest son Johnny, played by Sam Strike. Danny told gay magazine, Attitude, ‘[Dominic Treadwell-Collins] said, “Listen, I want you to come in as a family man. I want you to be alpha male. He loves his missus. Loves his kids. You’re not going to know you have a gay son, he’s going to come out to you, you’re going to embrace it.”’ It was a considerable subversion of the EastEnders norm, as well as a major shock as far as Danny’s public image was concerned. Danny was delighted to be given the opportunity to prove himself to a wider audience, asserting that he was going to ‘grab this with both hands’, viewing it as a unique chance to ‘go back to basics’ and focus solely on the acting.

  Johnny’s character was introduced as a bit of a Jack the Lad, but it is quickly shown that this is merely a front. Johnny’s opening storyline would see him finally accept his own suspicions about his sexuality and admit to himself that he is gay, before eventually plucking up the courage to come out to his parents.

  The set-up for Johnny’s storyline was underway early, with a few shared glances with Gary Lucy’s Danny Pennant – a character who had been noted as bisexual in previous episodes. This was all Johnny needed to make a move. After a few drinks for Dutch courage, and ignoring the warning he’d been given about Pennant – ‘He’d flirt with a lamp post’ – Johnny gives in to his curiosity and the pair end up kissing in the Square. When confronted by the few members of his family who do know his secret, Johnny states categorically that he fears that his parents, especially his father, would not be able to accept it.

  As the story played out and Johnny was eventually ‘outed’ in front of his parents by his sister Nancy during a family argument, the scene was set for some revelatory acting that would go a long way towards changing everyone’s preconceived ideas about Danny as an actor, as well as forcing many of his harshest critics to reassess their long-held prejudices against him as a person.

  The whole thread is a masterclass in the unexpected, with an amazing script by veteran soap writer Daran Little, which challenges every snap judgement we might have made about the characters and teases out some extraordinary performances from all of the new actors.

  Danny knew he had a fight on his hands if he was to successfully deliver a new spin on a familiar story. Key to this storyline working was Danny’s ability to keep the audience believing his character’s reactions, despite challenging their preconceptions of him as more of a one-dimensional bad boy. He told Attitude, ‘Coming out stories have been done a thousand times before: The more typical way of dealing with it in a soap is that the hard man dad might have a problem.’ Danny showed he understood completely what people might be expecting, though: ‘EastEnders don’t usually do good dads. They’re dysfunctional . . . The women are strong. The dads are s**t.’

  Danny is especially strong in the opening scenes of the ‘coming out’ episode. The quiet stillness that Nick Love had praised him for in his early film performances is used to startling effect. It is obvious Mick suspects the truth about his son, but has made the decision to bide his time, realizing a soft approach is what’s needed in such a delicate situation. Danny’s key scene – the one that would soon come to completely define Mick’s character within the show, as well as redefine the Danny Dyer brand that had become such a millstone around his neck – was an intimate two-hander between Mick and Johnny.

  As the sequence opens, Mick begins by telling his son he can confide in him and he’ll listen and accept anything he has to say, deflecting Johnny’s attempts to use Whitney as a smokescreen, pushing him to open up about his true feelings. He says, ‘I’ll be honest with you, if I had a son who wore make-up and was all camp and that, I’d find it weird ... but I know that being gay is not a choice. It’s just something in you. It’s who you are.’ He went on to tell Johnny gently, ‘You can tell me anything, because you’re my son and you mean the world to me.’ It’s an incredibly personal moment, and Danny’s delivery is convincingly informal and protective. When Johnny eventually admits his sexuality, breaking down in his dad’s arms, Danny’s cries of, ‘Stop it! I love you, boy. I love you,’ are heartbreakingly real. As Johnny sobs and reveals his own disgust, saying he feels ‘unnatural’, Danny’s reply is commanding. ‘Don’t you dare say that. There is nothing unnatural about you,’ adding adamantly, ‘As if you’d ever let me down. You will never understand how proud we are of you ... What you just told me takes a lot of courage.’ Of course, it wouldn’t be a Danny Dyer scene if it didn’t end with a bit of banter. As the pair hug, Mick says, ‘So you’re the one we should have called Nancy.’

  There was no aggression or shouting from ‘hard man Danny Dyer’ – instead, the episode ends with a shot of Linda listening outside the room, distraught and weeping uncontrollably. With rare subtlety and the volume turned down, there was very little in the way of the expected EastEnders trade-marked screaming matches and, by flipping everything the audience had been expecting to see, the story was given a refreshing, unique spin, and was all the more convincing and powerful for it.

  Danny told Attitude magazine that he felt showing his son his full, unquestioning support was the natural thing for any father to do, adamantly stating, ‘Why shouldn’t they? If it was my son, that’s how I would react.’

  He had worked very hard to breathe life into Mick Carter and make him seem as close to a real person as possible, adding colour to the blueprint handed to him in early scripts. With a deep understanding of what was already there on the page and a fair amount of his own characteristic charm and humour, as well as incorporating many of his own beliefs and attitudes towards his own family, Danny had helped give birth to one of soap’s most genuine father figures, and a rare example of a decent, strong, male character on British television.

  This was a real personal triumph for Danny. He had shown a completely different side to his acting abilities, one he knew he was more than capable of, but which had only really been hinted at in his previous roles. He told Attitude, ‘We did the scene three times; we nailed it. We got the right tone. It was perfect: just looking at each other in the eyes. There was a couple of times he dropped his head and I bring it up and say, “No, you look at me. You never feel guilty. I’m proud of you.”’

  Sam Strike, in the same interview, was also keen to praise the truthfulness of the writing in that particular episode, saying, ‘That was really evident to me, in that it wasn’t clichéd in the slightest. When the writing’s good, it’s easy to remember – it’s what a human being would say, the natural string of words. It was what I can imagine the character would have said in the situation.’ Strike also had high praise for his on-screen father, saying playing opposite Danny he had been forced to be ‘completely vulnerable, completely open’, admitting, ‘The scene could have been a very different situation, where if I wasn’t familiar with the actor playing my dad, I would have been a bit more reluctant, maybe not have committed as much.’ He added, ‘Danny’s a really nice guy – very good at what he does. I just trust him. We both walked on set and were like, “Right
, let’s do this. Let’s do it well.”’

  The immediate reaction to the storyline sent Twitter into meltdown, and the show, and Danny, were trending for some time after the episode had aired. TV critic (and self-confessed Danny Dyer fan) Grace Dent tweeted, ‘reaching for the tissues again here’, with many other viewers sharing her enthusiasm. One commented, ‘That closing scene shows why #EastEnders is back in business. Tender, moving and artfully performed,’ while another said, ‘At this rate #EastEnders will have to bring back the “Everyone’s talking about it” tagline.’

  Many praised the show for sending out a strong positive message, with one tweeting, ‘A coming out scene on #EastEnders would never have played out like that even ten years ago. Nice to see times are changing. #progress.’ Another wrote, ‘I’m watching THAT #EastEnders scene from yesterday for the third time & it’s still mind-blowingly beautiful. They should show it in schools.’

  Some cited Danny’s performance as being particularly noteworthy, one posting, ‘Mick actually observes and thinks about other people’s facial expressions. This makes him a soap first.’ The EastEnders fansite, EastEnders ultra, tweeted, ‘OKAY! Do you love Mick Carter . . . OR do you love Mick Carter?! #BestSigningEver.’ It continued, ‘The new Carter family are marvellous! A new era for the show!’

  Daran Little, the writer of the ‘coming out’ episode, also joined the Twitter discussion, thanking the fans for their support. ‘Thank you all so much, really thrilled you enjoyed it ... really thrilled.’ He then wrote, ‘If you enjoyed tonight’s #EastEnders keep watching ... it’s going to get better and better over the next months thanks to @dominictc.’

  The following day’s newspapers picked up on the storyline, and the internet hype it had generated became a news story in itself. All of the positive feedback and free publicity was beyond the wildest dreams of everyone involved with making the show.