Changing Faces – or, growing up soap-style

Peter Beale returned to Albert Square last Friday (EastEnders Friday 7 June) and it looks like all that time spent surfing off the Devon coast has done him the world of good – he’s like a new man. Actually, he is a new man.

Ben Hardy as Peter Beale

The change from childhood to young adulthood is never an easy one but in soap-land the journey can often be more perilous than in life. Cute children regularly disappear, only to reappear at a later date as older, sexier (and in the case of females, often thinner) versions of their former selves. It’s a wonder that soap parents don’t ask more awkward questions about where their children have been and what they’ve been up to.

Perhaps the decision to change actors is driven by more than purely physical considerations. After all, the skills needed to play an adorable 10-year-old will be different than those needed to portray a rebellious teenager and different again to those required to convince as someone taking their first, uncertain steps into the adult world (or as a monstrous killer).

At EastEnders, these cast changes seem to happen fairly frequently. It’s not just Peter Beale (who’s now been played by four actors) who has transformed recently; last year Hetti Bywater took over the role of his sister, Lucy, from Melissa Suffield, who had played the part since 2004. Even little brother Bobby was re-cast earlier this year. Other recent changes have been made to the actors who play Lauren Branning and Ben Mitchell.

Obviously it’s not only in EastEnders that these transformations occur. Over on Emmerdale, Isabel Hodgins took over the role of Vicky Sugden from Hannah Midgley in 2006 and little Belle Dingle has had three actors play her already (including a baby boy).

Nor is it a new phenomenon; the first Tracy Barlow – Christabel Finch – retired to her room in No.1 Coronation Street in 1983 and wasn’t seen again for two years. And now she was being played by Holly Charmette. Charmette left in March 1988 and nine months later Tracy came back in the guise of 11-year-old Dawn Acton.

Dawn Acton

But does it have to happen? Can a child actor successfully navigate the path into adulthood and hold onto the role they were originally cast in?

Well, yes they can – Sam Aston has been Chesney Brown in Coronation Street since the character first appeared in 2003, taking the part from that of a loveable imp to the wronged husband he now portrays. But in soap, this journey just doesn’t seem to happen very often for a young actor; unlike, for example, in a long-running sitcom such as Outnumbered, where the cast of children has grown up on-screen before the viewers’ eyes.

I’d suggest the real reason for this difference lies in the format of the shows themselves, in the difference between the relentless, on-going nature of soap compared to the finite lifespan of other long-running shows. Soap has to go on (and on). And to do this it must constantly attract a new audience – a young audience that will then hopefully stick with the programme and continue watching as they get older. And what better way to appeal to a young audience than by giving them characters who can realistically embody the stories that they themselves are experiencing, or will be experiencing in a few years to come.

Kate Ford as Tracy Barlow

But maybe we should spare a thought for those young actors who don’t survive soap’s need to renew its audience. The list of youngsters who didn’t continue in their acting career is a long one, including Dawn Acton, who auditioned for the part of Tracy Barlow when it came up again in 2002, only to lose out to Kate Ford, who plays the role now.

Then again, Danniella Westbrook successfully revived her role as Sam Mitchell in 2009, after a nine-year break when the part was portrayed by Kim Medcalf. And Thomas Law, who played Peter Beale for four years before being replaced by Ben Hardy, recently secured the role of young Gary King in the new Simon Pegg-Edgar Wright movie, The World’s End, proving (if all goes well and he stays clear of Devon) that you can have a career as an actor after playing a soap youngster after all.

The Fall – murder never looked so good

As well as gaining a lot of praise, new BBC Two crime drama The Fall has also come in for criticism over its portrayal of a Belfast serial killer and his pursuit by an enigmatic police detective.

The murder of young women at the hands of male perpetrators is nothing new in crime shows. In fact, it’s a staple of the genre, including the most critically acclaimed continental dramas of the last few years such as Spiral and The Killing (which The Fall has been compared to). So why has The Fall been criticised so much?

Is it perhaps because we see the killer at work? Does the idea that Paul Spector (played by Jamie Dornan) can have a successful career as a grief counsellor somehow go against our image of an average serial killer? Or is it because we see that he has a family life? That he takes his kids to the park and cuddles them at night? Is the problem that we see him being a loving father?

Some of the criticism of the show has been levelled at the fact that the audience actually sees Spector commit his crimes on screen. This is a departure from the way these stories are usually told, and an interesting twist that was bound to get the show more attention, but for me it isn’t the real problem with The Fall, that lies elsewhere.

There’s a lot I like about The Fall. I like the writing, I like the setting, I like the performances – Gillian Anderson is superb as DSI Stella Gibson. But my problem is this: I like how it looks.

It looks GREAT – from the handsome cast to the handsome shots of the handsome locations. But what drama doesn’t look great at the moment? Have you seen the dental care that’s clearly available in the post-apocalyptic world of Sky’s Revolution?

Maybe it’s a US influence, maybe it’s a reflection of how we want to see ourselves now, but it seems to me every TV show, and everybody in a TV show, has to look great these days. Even if you’re a serial killer, you have to be a goddamn sexy serial killer.

Now, I’m not saying that bad people have to be ugly, I’d just rather have drama reflect reality a little more. And yes, I realise that the desire for the money to be seen on screen has always been around but it seems to me with the coming of HD, that desire has become more readily realised.

Let’s face it, the reality of murder is hideous (I imagine). And the juxtaposition of the glamorous, high definition portrayal of murder on television and its hideous reality is hard to take.

So I guess that’s my problem with The Fall – it makes murder sexy. And obviously it’s not. Unless it’s on TV.