EE: Janine's return

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Bad girl Charlie Brooks is set to return to Albert Square

Brooks, who played Janine Butcher, will return for a special show in January in which the soap’s favourite characters will pay tribute to Mike Reid. Reid, who played Frank Butcher, passed away earlier in the year. Patsy Palmer, best known as fiery red head Bianca, and on screen husband Sid Owen will also make a comeback to the BBC show.

Brooks said: “I was honoured to be asked and am really looking forward to it. Mike Reid passed away earlier in the year and they are going to give him a tribute on the show. Patsy’s going back. Sid’s going back. It’s going to be very bizarre seeing everybody. It’s exciting times for EastEnders,” she said on ITV’s Loose Women.

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[Skylace]

It will be nice to see her again. I really enjoyed her character. A much better bitch and villain than Shirley or the others.

[thatcomedian]

[Skylace]

[faceless]

I've added the interview from 'Loose Women' to the members-only soaps thread

[Skylace]

Cheers Face

[misslisalynn]

It'll be great seeing Janine back only sorry that it won't be to stay. I've never seen Bianca, that was before I started watching but from all that I've read about her I can't wait to finally see her and Ricky.

[Skylace]

When I started watching in 99 there was a lot of stuff with Bianca going on. It was my first taste and I was hooked but she still makes me cringe

[Twirley]

[Skylace]

[faceless]

Have a Butchers at Charlie now
She dropped weight, shaped up and shipped out of EastEnders. Now actress Charlie Brooks is heading back to Walford. Catherine Jones spoke to her about her big return to the Square and life as a working single mum
Jul 19 2008
by Catherine Jones,
Western Mail

LIFE is sweet (but low-calorie) for Charlie Brooks, the one-time tubby EastEnders vixen, who will return to the popular soap full-time this autumn. A 27-year-old single mother of three-year-old Kiki, Charlie has slimmed to a trim 8 stone 10 pounds – a very evident transformation which no doubt helped make her fitness DVD the best-selling in the UK.

Split from her fiance, events organiser Tony Truman, Barmouth-raised Charlie – who has signed a £100,000-a-year contract to return as Walford minx Janine Evans – is enjoying life as a yummy-mummy. She reckons she has never felt better – or sexier – and after dropping from a size 16 to a size 8 after the birth of her daughter in 2005, Charlie says she will never again be more than nine stone.

“I’ve had so much response to that DVD, some wonderful people coming up to me and men saying ‘My wife has lost four stone’. “It’s lovely that it was so successful. The best-selling one ever!” she says of the DVD, Charlie Brooks – Before and After Workout. “I had just given birth. I was really overweight. I suppose the DVD’s success is something to do with the fact people could see the transformation.”

The 50-minute programme features Charlie working out with trainer Dee Thresher to five different routines. And while she’s one of a growing number of celebrities to release fitness programmes, Charlie received glowing reviews from exercise experts when it came out two years ago. When comparing her DVD with other celebrity workouts, including those by Ulrika Jonsson, Davina McCall and Martine McCutcheon, one reviewer awarded Charlie the highest marks – nine out of 10 – saying, “The moves and music are inspiring and upbeat. It’s hard not to want to move to this DVD.”

For Charlie, looking and feeling good is all about moderation balanced with a lot of hard work and determination. But she admits to having a few guilty food pleasures. “Indian takeaways – I can’t resist a nice creamy chicken korma! Also potatoes, and bread. I try and avoid them when I can, but I won’t deprive myself of them altogether. I love food too much, and life would be dull without treats. It’s just a question of keeping up the exercise. If you burn off the calories, you’ll be OK.”

Work-wise, Charlie has plenty on her plate. There’s the return of Janine, and she also appears in ITV3’s Jack Osborne Adrenaline Junkie this month – “jumping off a dam, being strapped to a helicopter” – and she is currently filming Wired, a three-part ITV drama with Laurence Fox. “It’s based on fact, about money laundering. It’s about how people steal money from a bank… very complicated and a very good cast!”

After several reported approaches from EastEnders’ bosses, Charlie plans to make a one-year comeback as superbitch Janine, the character who killed her husband, Barry, on their wedding day. This April she returned for four episodes, which saw Janine attend the funeral of her father, Frank Butcher. Is it going to be tough going back to a full-time role?

“I know, I know. I think it’s going to be tough but I know what to expect. There’s a beginning, middle and end to it and I am looking forward to settling for a year. It’s going to be full-on. What’s been so lovely before is that a job might last a few weeks and then I get time out with Kiki. That’s the great thing about unemployment – I get to spend time with her! I don’t know quite how it will work with Kiki but Tony’s mum is around. I’m looking forward to walking in and doing all of that and finding out what’s going on with Janine. There’s so much that goes with going back to a show – the ones I know are Patsy (Palmer), Sid (Owen), Barbara (Windsor) and Pam (St Clements) and the rest are all new. It’s fine. You deal with it. I’d forgotten for the last three years how easy I’ve had it!”

Janine’s storylines were often harrowing involving cocaine addiction, prostitution and murder and such was the draw of the character, Charlie filmed a behind-the-scenes show for the BBC called The Rise and Fall of Janine Butcher, including filming the most dramatic scenes involving the murder of her husband, Barry Evans. She left EastEnders in May 2004 after Janine was wrongly arrested for the murder of Laura Beale, played by Hannah Waterman, and the character’s trial took place 18 months later with Janine acquitted but not on screen.

Her soap work has won her industry recognition in the annual Soap Awards – in 2004 she won Villain of the Year award and in 2005, it was Best Exit. But shaking free of Janine also brought opportunities such as playing real-life serial killer nurse Beverley Allitt to much critical acclaim in the BBC1 drama, Beverley Allitt: Angel of Death. Allitt killed four children in her care at Lincolnshire’s Grantham Hospital and attempted to murder three more.

“I couldn’t help thinking about my daughter and how dreadful it would be if anything happened to her. I’d come from filming and bawl my eyes out – having first given Kiki an extra big hug and telling her how much I loved her. It was quite hard, just after the birth of Kiki. I was reading all the books and researching all of it.” She then adds: “But I’m the kind who leaves my work at work. I like to research and all that sort of thing but I am not very sort of ‘method’. I am quite good at switching it off.”

Charlie, who lives in London with Kiki, denies she felt pressure to slim after the birth of her daughter, despite the raft of women in the public eye who appear to effortlessly lose any excess weight within weeks.

“Do you know what? I just think each individual to their own,” she says. “I might put pressure on myself but I don’t feel pressure from the business. I knew how it felt to be slimmer so it was a personal decision. It’s outrageous that magazines one month are calling someone fat and the next it will be they are anorexic.”

Charlie, who has not long returned from a tip to Euro Disney with her daughter, doesn’t want Kiki growing up in an environment where skinny is all and believes being healthy is all-important.

“I think it should be about educating children about food and keeping active. At school they should learn basic life skills, learning to eat properly and exercising, more from a health point of view than anything else. Everything is so celebrity-obsessed but I’m not really part of that. I think it’s a conscious decision. I used to go out to hot spots and the paparazzi were there but as I get older it’s just not my thing. I like to go out and have a party but I also think it’s a good thing to retain an air of mystery.”

Her career includes roles in The Bill, London’s Burning, Jonathan Creek and The Demon Headmaster as well as The Golden Hours, Casualty and Heartbeat. She was also the voice of Mary Dixon for the BBC radio adaptation of Dixon of Dock Green. Charlie also appeared in Robin Hood and Love Soup and played brick-maker’s wife, Jenny in Bleak House.

“It was about four weeks filming, with a great cast. It was a great job,” she says. “I’d love to do more period drama like that. It was perfect for me after having Kiki, as it was quite a small role, just three weeks’ work spread sporadically over six months. The only thing I wasn’t crazy about was my character had to cradle a dead baby in her arms! It was heart-wrenching. They used a doll, but it was very realistic, and just a few weeks after I’d given birth; no tear-stick necessary!”

It’s all a far cry from her childhood days at the Dragon Theatre in Barmouth.

“That’s where I started,” she says. "I think I was probably seven years old when I got involved with Maureen and Angela’s local drama classes at the Dragon Theatre. I played a little angel in the nativity play at school and that was it. It was what I wanted to do.”

She was a pupil at Ysgol y Traeth in Barmouth but says she doesn’t speak Welsh now – although she learned it as a youngster. “My Welsh accent was hammered out of me when I was at drama school, but people still say they can detect a hint of it. When I go back, it comes back. I was taught in Welsh, and I spoke it fluently when I was a lot younger – but I can’t remember any of it now. My dad is still in Wales and I have lots of aunties and uncles there. "

"Dad used to run a building company. He’s a bit of a hippy and goes travelling with his wife, Lisa. They have a lovely bed and breakfast in Barmouth. He’s very proud of me, he’s the most proud dad ever! None of my family is Welsh. We moved there from Hertfordshire just after my little brother was born but I love Wales and I love going back to visit. My best friend, Kate Jones – we went to college and lived together – is in Newtown. When you are 12 or 13, Wales is a wonderful place to be. I was brought up on the beach and mountains but I just wanted more. There was a lack of amenities in the town we were in.”

Charlie says her parents were incredibly supportive of her desire to act. “My dad and my mum started off thinking it was a phase I was going through but a couple of years on, we sent off for a prospectus because I wanted to go to drama school.”

She went to London as did her brother, Ben, 25, who also studied acting. “I was terribly home sick. Ben and I boarded with a family for about six months when I was 13. I wanted to leave. My parents had split up by then and my mum decided to move to London. It’s unbelievable the support that my parents have given me,” says Charlie, who says she has another sister “who is not blood-related but came to live with us when she was about 15”.

Charlie, whose mother, Ro, runs the Ravenscourt Theatre School in London, knows her single status will prompt speculation about her love life and she admits she enjoys going on dates.

“I do like a bit of facial hair on a man,” she says. “I just like men to be men. The metrosexual thing is fine but each to their own. It’s so much about personality. That’s what I find attractive. It’s about a connection. Who they are and who their soul is. I am a bit of a free spirit, I’m very spiritual. I don’t follow any particular religion, I don’t practice anything but I do believe in something. I’ve been reading about Hinduism and it’s fascinating. I’m in touch with my spiritual side and would love to travel more with Kiki. I love being a hippy at heart. I kind of regret not having time to backpack and go for a year, me and Kiki. I really like the idea of India and Brazil. It always baffles me when I meet people that they think I will be like Janine.”

What about crossing the Atlantic to Hollywood?

“If Hollywood was going to select me and take me over there – which may be the wrong attitude. It’s just not me. I love London, I love being round my friends and family. That makes me happy. I’ve just got back from Paris which was wonderful. It just makes me smile. I wouldn’t want to leave what I’ve got here. I don’t think I’m very LA.”

In 2003, Charlie appeared in a Bill Kenwright production of the play Office Games at the Pleasance Theatre in London opposite Adam Rickitt who played Nick Tilsley in Coronation Street.

“I’d like to do more stage,” says Charlie. “That’s going to be my goal for next year. I am going to concentrate on voice work after EastEnders. Absolutely terrifying but so rewarding. I’m desperate to do more of it. Ideal role? I’d like to do a play off Broadway for six months. Perhaps try my hand at real comedy.”

Urban girl Charlie says she couldn’t wait to see the Sex And The City film – “I was desperate!” – and likes to mix city life with travel and independence. “I love going out for a drink with girlfriends and we drink lots of wine! I love being single. I just feel happy and have found myself over the last couple of years. Oh my God it’s so OK to be single. It’s not something that enters my head to think that I should be in a relationship.”

And of motherhood? “Oh God, I absolutely love it. We’ve just got back from Euro Disney and Kiki was in her element. I was very impressed too! I think her favourites were Micky and Minnie Mouse and she was saying ‘I’m going to miss my characters’. She’s unbelievable. She is not even slightly shy. She’s got the most ridiculous confidence because her dad is a very confident and outgoing person. I think she’s going to be on the stage! She’s very cute.”

"I love going out for a drink with girlfriends and we drink lots of wine! I love being single. I just feel happy!"

[eefanincan]

Sounds like she's done well for herself Looks like it's going to be an interesting year ahead for the Square!

[Twirley]

I am so looking forward to having Janine back. I really like her as an actress...and as her character Janine, she is amazing. I was watching Robin Hood on BBC AMerica last week and saw her on it. Straightaway I thought, that's Janine from EE, but then she really got me hooked into the part she was playing in Robin Hood.

Well done, Charlie!!

[SpursFan1902]

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oy vey! Has she no morals at all?