Tony Carpenter

Infobox EastEnders character 2


character_name=Tony Carpenter
actor_name=Oscar James
creator=Tony Holland and Julia Smith
years=1985–1987
first=28 February 1985
last=28 May 1987
dob=
status= Separated
home= Trinidad
occupation= Carpenter
sons= Kelvin Carpenter
wife=Hannah Carpenter
daughters=Cassie Carpenter

Tony Carpenter was a fictional character in the BBC soap opera "EastEnders". He was played by Oscar James.

Happy go lucky Tony tried to carve himself a successful business and steady home for his family, but nothing he did was ever good enough for his nagging wife.

Character creation and development

Tony Carpenter was one of the original twenty-three characters invented by the creators of "EastEnders", Tony Holland and Julia Smith. Tony was originally intended to be named Alan, and his son Kelvin Carpenter was originally named Kevin. They were the first black characters to appear in the soap. Black and Asian characters were two ethnic minorities that had previously been under-represented in British soap before "EastEnders" aired. Holland and Smith knew that for the soap to succeed there needed to be a varied group of characters, so that several different sections of the audience had someone to identify with. Additionally, if the programme was to be realistic, it had to reflect the cross-section of society that actually existed in the real location. For these reasons, different sexes, ages, classes, religions and races were all included in the original character line-up. Both Holland and Smith had been at the forefront of the move towards 'integrated casting' in television and had encountered an array of ethnic diversities in the process. Even though the ethnic minority groups were deemed the hardest to research, Holland and Smith called upon their contacts to relay information about their origins and lifestyles and were then able to portray Walford's most recent immigrants more realistically.cite book |last=Smith|first= Julia|authorlink= Julia Smith|coauthors=Holland, Tony|title= EastEnders - The Inside Story |year=1987|publisher=Book Club Associates|id=ISBN 0-563-20601-2]

Tony's original character outline as written by Smith and Holland appeared in an abridged form in their book, "" (In this passage, Tony will be referred to as Alan).

:"Alan is Caribbean: one of the "came here when ten" from an idylic life in Trinidad with his gran....A confusing childhood and, at first, he hated England. He felt different, felt coloured, suffered abuse from the white kids...He met Hannah. She was several cuts above him socially. He liked the idea of a "princess" and she liked the idea of a "a bit of rough". In the beginning this made their marriage all the more exciting...But he was short on staying power...In and out of jobs...Boredom always setting in early...A constant desire for change at any price...Hannah meanwhile became more and more stubborn...They set themselves on a collision course...Hannah became too housebound, houseproud, too disciplined with the two children, too rigid, not seeing the wood for the trees. Alan became too anarchic, too sleeping-around, too devil-may-care and up-yours, frequently not seeing the wood for the booze...Perhaps if they split, they could find themselves again?...Alan has bought a house in the Square. His sixteen year old son Kevin wants to stay with his dad...How would Alan react to the discovery that Kevin's visiting his mother? How would Kevin react to his father trying to smuggle a woman for the night? And, how would dad react to son doing the same thing? What happens when they're competing for the same woman? As he wants to leave his mark - physically - on the walls of the building, so he wants to leave his mark on his son. Will Kevin take it, or leave it?...The house is the framework. The container...It will change its personality as the owners find theirs..." (page 58-59).

Alan's name was later changed to Tony following the development of the character of Ali Osman and Holland and Smith decided they couldn't have two male characters with such similar sounding names.
Oscar James, an experienced television and theatre actor, was chosen to play the role. James was physically much bigger than they'd originally had in mind, however they felt that his interpretation of Tony would be expansive and get noticed. They also thought it was a nice idea for father and son to be not only different in ages, but different physical types as well. Storywise it was felt it would be possible to build on this and also give them different attitudes. Oscar James was full of praise for the way the team had chosen to depict a black family.

Tony's storylines mainly centred around his developing relationship with his son, and marital issues with his wife. Before the seies began it was decided that Hannah (Tony's wife) plus their other child, would come back into Tony's life for the sake of the family - but not stay around too long because the neighbourhood would appal her. This was eventually recreated on-screen.

Tony Carpenter lasted in the show for two years and was the third of the original cast to leave the show; returning to Trinidad to search for his roots.

History

Trinidadian born Tony, married his wife Hannah after being divorced from his first wife. He and Hannah had two children, Kelvin and Cassie.

Tony's second marriage was not a happy one and Hannah soon lost all tolerance for her fun-loving husband. She began to look down upon his less than lucrative job as a carpenter and his inability to provide for her and her children. They separated in 1985, after which Tony bought a house in disuse at Number 3 Albert Square and set about making it habitable, leaving Hannah to move in with another man. Kelvin soon joined Tony on the square, although it took him a lot to persuade his wife to allow him custody of their son.

Tony was amiable and easy-going and was unmistakable in his sheepskin jacket and beret, which he rarely took off, even indoors.

Tony had various run-ins with the local villain Nick Cotton, and was understandably furious when he discovered that Nick had joined a racist organisation. After Nick taunted Kelvin about the colour of his skin, Tony went to teach him a lesson, which at least managed to scare him out of spreading his racial hatred for a while.

In February 1985, Tony secured himself a job renovating The Queen Victoria public house and gave the unemployed Arthur Fowler a job as his aid. It was whilst he was working here that Tony caught the eye of the married landlady Angie Watts. Angie had grown tired of her cheating husband, Den, and whilst he was away on a holiday in Spain with his lover, Angie set about seducing Tony and the two embarked on an affair. Tony took it seriously, but Angie was only using him to get back at Den and make him jealous. The affair was conducted in secret, but after Angie initiated a kiss in The Vic with Tony, she was caught by her daughter Sharon. Angie was forced to use bribery in order to keep her daughter from informing her husband, and even informed her about Den's current infidelity. Upon Den's return Angie called off the affair but it wasn't long before Sharon had disclosed her seedy shenanigans to her father. Unfortunately for Angie, Den cared more about his reputation than her and told her that he didn't care about the affair, so long as it was done discreetly. Tony was very hurt by the whole ordeal, but he was even more concerned for his own safety, should Den find out that it was him his wife was seeing. Fortunately for Tony his identity was never disclosed.In the spring of 1986, Tony's wife Hannah arrived on his doorstep, with the disturbing news that her new lover, Neville Agard, had been beating both her and their daughter Cassie. Tony was furious and promptly went to confront Neville, returning later covered in blood. Despite their past problems, Tony and Hannah decided to give their marriage another shot and both she and Cassie came to live in Albert Square. Problems still persisted, however, and Hannah would regularly nag Tony and make it clear to him that Walford was not good enough for her. Things came to a head when Tony thumped Mehmet Osman in February 1987 for making a pass at Hannah. Hannah was furious and couldn't condone his violent actions, despite willingly allowing him to assault her ex-lover months earlier. Hannah subsequently decided that the marriage was over and she left Walford to live with her sister.

Tony spent the rest of the year doing odd-jobs and driving a car for Ali Osman's cab firm. He got himself into bother when he bought some stolen silver-ware from Nick Cotton, who later tried to blackmail him for money in return for his silence. Tony soon started to tire of life in Walford and a few months later he departed the Square for Trinidad, leaving his son in charge of his property. His last appearance was in May 1987.

In 1993, it was mentioned that Tony and Kelvin had sent some flowers to Pete Beale's funeral.

References