EastEnders’ Shaun Williamson wants his former alter-ego Barry Evans to come back from the dead as a bad boy.
The 50-year-old actor played the gullible buffoon in the BBC One soap for 10 years until his character was killed off in 2004 but he hopes, if there is any way of resurrecting him, he’ll return to Walford one day as a frightening hardman.
Asked if he would return to the popular programme, Shaun said: "I just think it’s pushing it if they try to make out Barry has been hiding in Tottenham for the last 12 years.
"He was weak. Barry started off as quite an edgy character; he gave Cindy Beale (Michelle Collins) the number of the hitman who shot Ian Beale (Adam Woodyatt), he got hold of Cindy’s kids and tried to help get her out of the country and he set fire to the car lot [so I would like him to come back a bad boy]."
However, Shaun doesn’t regret turning his back on ‘EastEnders’ over a decade ago because it’s allowed him to try his hand at other things.
He said on ‘Loose Women’ today (03.02.16): "I’ve been out 12 years. I sort of had enough. These days they’ll let people go off and do ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ and then they’re allowed to go back into the show.
"Back then, they were really quite strict about that and that’s all I had done. I left drama school at 30, convinced I wanted to do theatre, and then I got snapped up by ‘EastEnders’ and was in it for 10 years so I’d never done any theatre so I booked the casting and I kind of forced their hand but I don’t regret it."