Mitchell Madness...

Peggy Mitchell in EastEnders is an utter idiot.

Her squawking, busybody, bigoted, pseudo-cockney, midget ways have annoyed me on EE for many a year now. But above all that it’s the fact that the character is such a bloody idiot that really gets my goat.

The bigoted old witch gave Mark Fowler hell over his HIV status, she had no idea her sons were continually up to no good, she picks totally unreliable men to get jiggy with (the dodgy gangster George Palmer, Frank Butcher with his twinkling eyes and roving hands and Harry Slater with his history of raping his young niece) and she emotionally suffocates anyone in her family to such an extent that most of them can’t wait to get away from her.

But her latest bout of stupidity saw her hand control of her business and the keys to her house to two relatives she didn’t even recognise before she sodded off on holiday to see one or other of her absent children. So she’s patently an idiot. Well that or the EE scriptwriters could think of no better way to get the repellent Mitchell matriarch out of the way so it could properly introduce its newest arrivals in Roxy and Ronnie Mitchell.

Roxy and Ronnie are Mitchells through and through. They’d only been in the Vic for five minutes before they were sticking up for their ‘fam’ly’ and serving pints behind the bar while Peggy suffered another crisis, this time over Phil’s aborted wedding to Stella. Half a dozen episodes later and Peggy had left the country and they were running the Mitchell empire and starting a new feud with Ian Beale.

The sisters themselves look like they could be good fun. Roxy is the flighty, slightly bubble-brained romantic with a good heart, a wicked smile and a nice line in low-cut tops. She’s played by Rita Simons and early signs indicate the character could have some potential and that the girl herself can also act. She’s also easier on the eye than Charlie Slater which always helps.

The older sister is Ronnie. She’s the slightly tougher and more sensible one. You can tell this because Rita wears clothes that wouldn’t look out of place on a 16-year-old girl eager to get served alcohol in a nightclub and Ronnie wears more sober clothes that make her look like a bank clerk on dress-down Friday. Ronnie is also played by Sam Janus, she of Game On fame with the scowling face like a slapped arse.

As a long-term fan of EE it will be interesting to see if the girls work out. The show obviously thinks it’s onto a winner judging by the amount of on-screen teasers and billboard posters proclaiming their arrival. And they’re certainly getting lots of screen time at the moment so it seems the powers-that-be at EE have big plans for them.

Let’s hope neither is the new love interest for Keith Miller, eh?