Richard Cole (EastEnders)
Encyclopedia
Richard Cole is a fictional character
from the BBC
soap opera
EastEnders
, played by Ian Reddington
between 1992 and 1994.
in 1992 as the new Walford market inspector. He was known as a corrupt man who would pull every trick in the book to make money and he was not well liked by the community. He was also a notorious womaniser who had various brief flings. He briefly dated market trader Rachel Kominski in 1992, but antagonised her later when he decided to give her permanent market pitch to his newly arrived friend, Sanjay Kapoor
. In 1993 he slept with 17-year old Bianca Jackson
, and when he dumped her shortly after, she and her friend Natalie
vandalised his flat. Later he had a longer-lasting romance with Kathy Beale, which soured when she discovered that he was taking a cash bribe and allowing a mobile hot dog van to trade in direct competition to her café.
Richard made various enemies, including Alan Jackson
who he reported for benefit fraud, Arthur Fowler
whom he caused to lose his job as market sweeper, and the lovers Mandy Salter
and Aidan Brosnan
. Richard bought a property to let out for rent; Mandy and Aidan were squatting in one of the bedsits at the time and Richard evicted them, leaving Aidan homeless and suicidal over Christmas 1993. However, Richard's main rival was Kathy's son Ian Beale
. Richard relished winding up Ian by flirting with Ian's wife Cindy
. Richard spread rumours about having an affair with Cindy, implying that he was the father of Cindy's unborn twins, which caused various problems in the Beale marriage for a while. Later, Richard orchestrated the closure of Ian's catering business the "Meal Machine" by reporting him to environmental health.
In revenge for this in 1994, Ian forced Richard to flee Walford when he found out some unsavoury things about his past. Richard had been a former planning officer for the council in Doncaster
; he and a colleague, Neil Bradley, had taken monetary bribes, but when they were caught, Richard framed his colleague, leading to the colleague's imprisonment. After Ian took photographic evidence of Richard and threatened to inform Bradley where Richard was, Richard disappeared, leaving his belongings/property in Sanjay's possession. Bradley showed up in Walford the following week and was dismayed to find Richard gone. He told Sanjay to tell Richard that when he found him, he would kill him.
and Helen Greaves took over control of EastEnders in 1992 and introduced a number of new characters. Most of them, such as Mandy Salter
(Nicola Stapleton
), Nigel Bates
(Paul Bradley) and Christine Hewitt
(Lizzie Power), were introduced gradually, making an initial appearance and then joining the programme as full-time characters a couple of months afterwards. EastEnders writer Colin Brake
has suggested that this allowed the producers and writers to see their new characters brought to life by their actors before committing them to longer contracts. The one exception to this procedure was the introduction of character Richard Cole, the soap's new market inspector, who joined the cast as a regular character without gradual introduction.
The character was conceived by writer Tony Jordan
. Richard was designed to be "a bit of a lad, a charming womanizer" and the original character's biography scripted him with as a uniform-wearing Cockney
from London. However, when Sheffield
-born actor Ian Reddington
read for the role, the production team liked his portrayal so much that they altered the character's backstory so they could accommodate Reddington's Northern-English accent. The character was nicknamed "Tricky Dicky" both in the show and the British press and become a prominent soap womanizer and villain for the two years he appeared; he had flings with various female characters, most notably Kathy Beale (Gillian Taylforth
) and Bianca Jackson
(Patsy Palmer
).
Tricky Dicky has beed described as a "lothario", as well as "corrupt, shifty and slimy as they come". Author Kate Lock suggests that Tricky Dicky was aptly named, stating "he was sly, underhand and ruthless, both in his business dealings [...] and with women." She adds that he was "good-looking in an oily sort of way, but dropped his girlfriends once he'd got another notch on his bedpost."
Reddington left EastEnders in 1994. On-screen, Richard become embroiled in a feud with Ian Beale
(Adam Woodyatt
) and decided to flee Walford. In was reported in 2009 that the BBC were intending to reintroduce Richard Cole, 15 years after he last appeared. A source allegedly told The People
, "[Richard] has unfinished business with Beale and it will add some tension to Walford". However, this was subsequently denied by the BBC.
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
from the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
soap opera
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...
EastEnders
EastEnders
EastEnders is a British television soap opera, first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 19 February 1985 and continuing to today. EastEnders storylines examine the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in the fictional London Borough of Walford in the East End...
, played by Ian Reddington
Ian Reddington
- Early life :Ian Reddington was born in Sheffield. He was educated at Frecheville Comprehensive. He had no formal drama training, but became a leading figure in the Meatwhistle youth theatre project run by youth workers in the city. This gave him his first appearance as The Herald in Peter...
between 1992 and 1994.
Storylines
Richard Cole arrived in WalfordWalford
Walford is a fictional borough of east London in the BBC soap opera EastEnders. The name Walford is both a street in Dalston where one of the series' creators, Tony Holland, lived and a blend of Walthamstow, where Holland was born, and Stratford. The suffix 'ford' is also found throughout East...
in 1992 as the new Walford market inspector. He was known as a corrupt man who would pull every trick in the book to make money and he was not well liked by the community. He was also a notorious womaniser who had various brief flings. He briefly dated market trader Rachel Kominski in 1992, but antagonised her later when he decided to give her permanent market pitch to his newly arrived friend, Sanjay Kapoor
Sanjay Kapoor (EastEnders)
Sanjay Kapoor is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Deepak Verma.Sanjay the market trader had an eye for the ladies and a weakness for gambling...
. In 1993 he slept with 17-year old Bianca Jackson
Bianca Jackson
Bianca Butcher is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Patsy Palmer. The character was introduced by executive producer Leonard Lewis and appeared initially from 1993 to 1999, when Palmer opted to leave. In 2002 executive producer John Yorke brought the character...
, and when he dumped her shortly after, she and her friend Natalie
Natalie Evans
Natalie Evans is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Lucy Speed between 1994 and 2004. Natalie first appeared in January 1994, depicted initially as an unhappy, insecure teenager; she was among various regular characters brought in to increase the cast following the...
vandalised his flat. Later he had a longer-lasting romance with Kathy Beale, which soured when she discovered that he was taking a cash bribe and allowing a mobile hot dog van to trade in direct competition to her café.
Richard made various enemies, including Alan Jackson
Alan Jackson (EastEnders)
Alan Jackson is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Howard Antony. He originally appeared between 1993 and 1997, and returned on 12 October 2010 for three episodes....
who he reported for benefit fraud, Arthur Fowler
Arthur Fowler
Arthur George Fowler is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Bill Treacher.The father of the Fowler family, Arthur was essentially a good man, but he made some foolish choices and he always ended up paying dearly for them, also being bossed to the brink of insanity by...
whom he caused to lose his job as market sweeper, and the lovers Mandy Salter
Mandy Salter
Mandy Salter is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Nicola Stapleton. Introduced on 12 March 1992, Mandy was portrayed as a teenage tearaway. She was featured in storylines about homelessness, child and drug abuse. Her relationship with Aidan Brosnan was one of the...
and Aidan Brosnan
Aidan Brosnan
Aidan Brosnan is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Sean Maguire between January and December 1993. A popular character, Aidan was involved in storylines about homelessness, drug-abuse and suicide...
. Richard bought a property to let out for rent; Mandy and Aidan were squatting in one of the bedsits at the time and Richard evicted them, leaving Aidan homeless and suicidal over Christmas 1993. However, Richard's main rival was Kathy's son Ian Beale
Ian Beale
Ian Albert Beale is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Adam Woodyatt. He is the longest-serving character and the only remaining original character to have appeared continuously since the first episode on 19 February 1985...
. Richard relished winding up Ian by flirting with Ian's wife Cindy
Cindy Beale
Cindy Beale is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Michelle Collins.Cindy always had an eye for the lotharios of Walford and despite trying to settle down repeatedly with the more reliable Ian Beale, she was unable to remain faithful to him. She had a selfish...
. Richard spread rumours about having an affair with Cindy, implying that he was the father of Cindy's unborn twins, which caused various problems in the Beale marriage for a while. Later, Richard orchestrated the closure of Ian's catering business the "Meal Machine" by reporting him to environmental health.
In revenge for this in 1994, Ian forced Richard to flee Walford when he found out some unsavoury things about his past. Richard had been a former planning officer for the council in Doncaster
Doncaster
Doncaster is a town in South Yorkshire, England, and the principal settlement of the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster. The town is about from Sheffield and is popularly referred to as "Donny"...
; he and a colleague, Neil Bradley, had taken monetary bribes, but when they were caught, Richard framed his colleague, leading to the colleague's imprisonment. After Ian took photographic evidence of Richard and threatened to inform Bradley where Richard was, Richard disappeared, leaving his belongings/property in Sanjay's possession. Bradley showed up in Walford the following week and was dismayed to find Richard gone. He told Sanjay to tell Richard that when he found him, he would kill him.
Creation and development
Producers Leonard LewisLeonard Lewis
Leonard Jack Lewis was a British producer and director. He was most active in television. He was the Executive/Series Producer for BBC's EastEnders during the early 1990s, though he had success with many other television programmes for both the BBC and ITV...
and Helen Greaves took over control of EastEnders in 1992 and introduced a number of new characters. Most of them, such as Mandy Salter
Mandy Salter
Mandy Salter is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Nicola Stapleton. Introduced on 12 March 1992, Mandy was portrayed as a teenage tearaway. She was featured in storylines about homelessness, child and drug abuse. Her relationship with Aidan Brosnan was one of the...
(Nicola Stapleton
Nicola Stapleton
Nicola Kathleen Stapleton is an English actress. Stapleton began her career at an early age. She is most famous for her work on British television, in particular her roles as Mandy Salter in BBC's EastEnders and Janine Nebeski in ITV's Bad Girls.-Early life:Stapleton grew up off East Street, which...
), Nigel Bates
Nigel Bates
Nigel Bates is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Paul Bradley from 1992 to 1998. Introduced in 1992 by Leonard Lewis, the character was incorporated gradually and brought back as a regular following a brief stint due to a popular reception. He was depicted as a...
(Paul Bradley) and Christine Hewitt
Christine Hewitt
Christine Hewitt is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Elizabeth Power. Introduced in 1992 as a lonely divorcée who became besotted with married Arthur Fowler while he tended her garden...
(Lizzie Power), were introduced gradually, making an initial appearance and then joining the programme as full-time characters a couple of months afterwards. EastEnders writer Colin Brake
Colin Brake
Colin Brake is an English television writer and script editor best known for his work for the BBC on programs such as Bugs and EastEnders. He has also written spin-offs from the BBC series Doctor Who...
has suggested that this allowed the producers and writers to see their new characters brought to life by their actors before committing them to longer contracts. The one exception to this procedure was the introduction of character Richard Cole, the soap's new market inspector, who joined the cast as a regular character without gradual introduction.
The character was conceived by writer Tony Jordan
Tony Jordan
Tony Jordan is a British television writer. He was listed as the number 1 television screen writer in the UK by Broadcast magazine and among British Broadcastings Top 20 in The Stage ., He currently resides in Hertfordshire, UK.For many years, he was lead writer and series consultant for BBC One...
. Richard was designed to be "a bit of a lad, a charming womanizer" and the original character's biography scripted him with as a uniform-wearing Cockney
Cockney
The term Cockney has both geographical and linguistic associations. Geographically and culturally, it often refers to working class Londoners, particularly those in the East End...
from London. However, when Sheffield
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...
-born actor Ian Reddington
Ian Reddington
- Early life :Ian Reddington was born in Sheffield. He was educated at Frecheville Comprehensive. He had no formal drama training, but became a leading figure in the Meatwhistle youth theatre project run by youth workers in the city. This gave him his first appearance as The Herald in Peter...
read for the role, the production team liked his portrayal so much that they altered the character's backstory so they could accommodate Reddington's Northern-English accent. The character was nicknamed "Tricky Dicky" both in the show and the British press and become a prominent soap womanizer and villain for the two years he appeared; he had flings with various female characters, most notably Kathy Beale (Gillian Taylforth
Gillian Taylforth
Gillian Taylforth is an English actress. She is best known for her roles as Kathy Mitchell on the BBC soap opera, EastEnders and as Jackie Pascoe-Webb on ITV's Footballers Wives , but more recently as Sgt. Nikki Wright in ITV's The Bill...
) and Bianca Jackson
Bianca Jackson
Bianca Butcher is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Patsy Palmer. The character was introduced by executive producer Leonard Lewis and appeared initially from 1993 to 1999, when Palmer opted to leave. In 2002 executive producer John Yorke brought the character...
(Patsy Palmer
Patsy Palmer
Patsy Palmer is an English actress. Palmer made an early television appearance on the children's drama show Grange Hill, but is best known for playing Bianca Jackson in the popular British television soap opera EastEnders. Originally in the cast from 1993–1999, Palmer returned to EastEnders in...
).
Tricky Dicky has beed described as a "lothario", as well as "corrupt, shifty and slimy as they come". Author Kate Lock suggests that Tricky Dicky was aptly named, stating "he was sly, underhand and ruthless, both in his business dealings [...] and with women." She adds that he was "good-looking in an oily sort of way, but dropped his girlfriends once he'd got another notch on his bedpost."
Reddington left EastEnders in 1994. On-screen, Richard become embroiled in a feud with Ian Beale
Ian Beale
Ian Albert Beale is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Adam Woodyatt. He is the longest-serving character and the only remaining original character to have appeared continuously since the first episode on 19 February 1985...
(Adam Woodyatt
Adam Woodyatt
Adam Brinley Woodyatt is an English actor and media personality, best known for his role as Ian Beale in the long-running BBC soap opera EastEnders...
) and decided to flee Walford. In was reported in 2009 that the BBC were intending to reintroduce Richard Cole, 15 years after he last appeared. A source allegedly told The People
The People
The People, previously known as the Sunday People, is a British tabloid Sunday-only newspaper. The paper was founded on 16 October 1881.It is published by the Trinity Mirror Group.In July 2011 it had an average daily circulation of 806,544....
, "[Richard] has unfinished business with Beale and it will add some tension to Walford". However, this was subsequently denied by the BBC.