I’m a bit gutted (if you can be a bit gutted) by the news that Melissa Suffield, who plays Lucy Beale on EastEnders, is to be replaced by a different actress.
According to a BBC person, “It’s common practice to recast actors employed as children to take on more challenging adult storylines.” This is undeniably true – there are loads of examples on Corrie of characters who’ve gone away for a couple of weeks only to reappear as entirely different actors (Nick Tilsley, Amy Barlow, Tracy Barlow, Rosie Webster… etc).
But I’m sad that Melissa Suffield has been chosen for this treatment (not as sad as Melissa is, reportedly), because I enjoy her work as the stroppy, feisty spawn of Ian Beale. Lucy’s one of my favourite characters, because she comes across like a real teenager in the sense that she seems perfectly poised between being scarily sensible and mature, and being a complete nut-job.
I’m not sure I want to know what the new, mature storylines the scriptwriters have in mind for Lucy Beale if they think that Melissa, who handled her recent pregnancy/abortion storyline with perfect aplomb, couldn’t handle them. There are rumours that she’s a bit of a handful off-set, which may be the real reason why she’s being let go, and that’s a shame.
Meanwhile, Charlie Jones, who plays Ben Mitchell, is also being replaced by a different actor. This is more understandable, as the lad is quite good at being camp-slash-evil, but not terribly good at realistic acting. Ben will leave the Square and, when he returns, he’ll have a different face and no-one will notice. Poor Charlie is said to be “inconsolable.”
Posted by PLA Related post: New Ben, same old Janine
(more Eastenders posts here)
HOLBY CITY BEHIND THE SCREEN
pauseliveaction 
melissa is the best no 1 will handle the lines the same
I’ve got no idea why they need to replace her. She’s been brilliant recently.
Meh, who cares.
It’s nice that you care enough to let us know you don’t care. Otherwise we’d just have assumed that you do care, which would obviously (it now turns out) have been wrong.
She is one of the worst actors ever. Her could be played so much better. Seeing as TV soaps are shown basically everyday you would expect good actors and good writing, however; both of those are dreadful in the case of all soaps on television. The only good actor, who is a great actor, that i have seen on soaps is Larry Lamb who played Archie (I think) on Eastenders.
Television programmes are going to have to get less depressing than this gob-shite otherwise there will be a significant rise in suicides.
Thankyou.
Does anyone really contemplate suicide over the state of the nation’s soaps? I think we should be told.
im a virgin looser i want lucy bealeeeeeeeeee 😀
how embaressing for you gareth!!!!!!!!!!!!!
how dare they replace melissa who plays lucy beale with a dfferent person. they are just stupid,
I mean are htey out of their minds. melissa is the best person to play lucy beale, because she can do the really devious looks. so their is my point of view, but i still have 100 more reasons why they
SHOULDN’T replace her with a different person. But i’m sure you dont want to read 100 more reasons from me tonight. So I suppose I will let you off now. But i want to let you know my last 100 reasons because I am so angry, infact iam fuming. I am so angry smoke is coming out of my ears this instant. I mean i kow that you might think thats a lie but it isnt. I wish I had a wabcam to show you but unfortunately I don’t. So when you have read this you will know what i mean about me ,being fuming. As iam writing this iam thinking of 10,000 more reasons. Thankyou for reading.
Ooh, you’re quite cross, aren’t you? I completely agree with you, though – thought Melissa was great in that role. She was one of my favourite people in EastEnders, and I just don’t get this line that they need another actress to handle more adult storylines because the way she handled the pregnancy story was brilliant.
she is being replaced because of her off-screen behaviour which is a real shame as she was brilliant as Lucy Beale, but she was warned several times. She like to go out and get drunk which is what teenagers do but as she is on BBC and Eastenders they can not condone this. Such a shame though. Hope Melissa does well at whatever she chooses to do.