Jamie Foreman has called for ‘EastEnders’ to "pull their act together" after the soap was snubbed from the BAFTA TV Awards.
The 60-year-old actor portrayed Derek Branning in the BBC One show from 2011 to 2012, and he has called for the programme to introduce some more "humour" into the scripts to make the soap more "watchable", like rival ‘Coronation Street’.
He exclusively told BANG Showbiz: "’EastEnders’ didn’t get the recognition this year in the awards system that they’re used to, that might be telling them something. Maybe they need to pull their act together a little bit.
"There’s a lot of ironies about ‘EastEnders’. If you’re living in Albert Square you’re living in about a £3 million house.
"So you’ve got to bring reality to it and a little bit of humour. Humour is everything – ‘Coronation Street’ does it in bucket-fulls. That makes it watchable.
"You don’t want everyone to be miserable and skint. It gets wearing."
Jamie was disappointed to be killed off from the soap in December 2012 when Derek died of a heart attack, because he had hoped to make regular returns as an "impact character".
He added: "I was sad to go from ‘EastEnders’ because I thought the character could’ve had a bit more about him.
"I thought he could’ve been brought back as an impact character, so that would’ve been nice to do."
Earlier this year, ‘EastEnders’ missed out on a nod for the Virgin TV British Academy Television Awards 2018 in the Soap and Continuing Drama category, but the show’s main rivals ‘Coronation Street’, ‘Emmerdale’ and ‘Hollyoaks’ were all nominated along with ‘Casualty’, which claimed the gong.
EastEnders’ omission is the first time the programme has missed out on a nod in the category since 2005 when ‘Coronation Street’ won the award, beating off competition from ‘Doctors’, ‘The Bill’ and ‘Holby City’.
Jamie Foreman calls for EastEnders improvement
