EastEnders star Lacey Turner reveals why iconic June Brown "hated" show changes

EastEnders' Lacey Turner revealed why soap icon June Brown "hated" show changes. Brown was best known for her role as Dot Cotton, a part she'd played since 1985.

The actor, who passed away in 2022 at age 95, made multiple appearances in EastEnders, leaving the show in 1993 before returning in 1997. She also took a break in 2012, coming back to the role in 2013 after six months and eventually departed EastEnders in 2020.

Turner first joined the show in 2004 as Stacey Slater and worked alongside Brown for several years. In her recent memoir 'Gold Dust: My Life (So Far) with the Woman Who Shaped Me', she revealed that Brown was very knowledgeable when it came to the show's storylines.

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"June was across everything at work, she read every script. She knew everyone’s story and what all the characters were up to," she wrote.

"Not many people did that but June was all-knowing and even when she started losing her sight she would have somebody read the whole thing to her."

According to Turner, Brown became "upset about the direction the show was taking", adding: "She hated some of the storylines. What was hard for June? Was that the world was changing? Which meant EastEnders had to change, too.

“People were watching television in a different way but she couldn’t or didn’t want to move at the times, and I completely get where she was coming from because I feel a bit like that as well."

In 2017, Brown said during an appearance in a special BBC show to celebrate her 90th birthday, June Brown at 90: A Walford Legend, that she could be "very bossy" when it came to the show's writing.

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"It is very difficult to go against the writing," she said (via The Mirror). "If they decide to change you or the writers change, not deliberately or just what happens...I am a great fighter. I'm very much a terrier.

''I try to twist them around a little. There is a way of twisting. It's just the way you say it. It ain't what you say, it's the way what you say it. So I must admit to that. I'm very bossy really."

Turner, who is currently appearing on Strictly Come Dancing, departed Walford last year, also revealing in her memoir that it was Martin Fowler's death in the show's 40th anniversary episode that influenced her decision to leave.

EastEnders airs on Mondays-Thursdays at 7.30pm on BBC One. The show also streams on BBC iPlayer, where most episodes drop early at 6am ahead of their TV broadcast.

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