Samantha Womack and the BBC have announced that Womack’s character in EastEnders, Ronnie Mitchell, will be leaving the show in May after the current cot death storyline has finished. According to The Sun the actress resigned the day she got the controversial script in November last year, she wrote a letter to the EastEnders bosses saying the storyline went too far but they managed to persuade her to stay until the end of the storyline in May. (Yes that does mean it is all going to drag on for a few months yet!)
The controversial storyline in question is the cot death of Ronnie’s newborn baby and the subsequent switch she did with Kat Moon’s also newborn baby. The main scenes aired on New Years Ever and New Years Day and the BBC have received over 3,400 complaints already with some viewers saying that the plot’s portrayal of a grief-stricken new mother as unhinged and capable of very terrible things as offensive and insensitive.
The BBC have replied with this statement:
“We appreciate this is a particularly emotive storyline and as with all such sensitive subject matters, we approached it with great care and attention, seeking guidance and advice from a number of experts in this field in order to ensure as realistic a portrayal as possible.
EastEnders has a long history of exploring difficult issues, and the storyline regarding Ronnie and Kat follows in this tradition.”
So does the fact that Samantha Womack disagreed with the storyline so much that she quit undermine the BBC’s statement? What do you think of the controversial plot, do you think its done well, done badly or just plain distasteful? Comment below with your opinions!
Picture via Gossip Blender
