Actress Lacey Turner is to Quit Eastenders

Lacey Turner, who has played the role of Stacey Branning in Eastenders since 2004, will be leaving the show later this year, according to BBC news.

Eastenders is not only one of the UK's top soap operas but also one of the oldest still running, having just celebrated it's 25th anniversary.

Set in the East End of London, the show is based around the fictional location of Albert Square, with it's typical London street market, corner shops, and of course the local pub, the Queen Vic (Victoria).

Lacey's character has been through hell and back in the last year, having been sent to a mental home for being emotionally unstable, then returning home and finally marrying her boyfriend Bradley Branning, played by actor Charlie Clements, earlier this year.

All of this happened in parallel with one of the biggest events in the show's history, the murder of arch-villain Archie Mitchell in the Queen Vic on Christmas Eve.

The script writers cleverly wrote in a possible half a dozen characters in the "who-done-it" murder mystery, including his daughter, ex-wife and also his fiancee. Each of these seemed to play a role in the murder, having gone into the Queen Vic that evening, but nobody really knew who committed the crime.

Meantime, Stacey, played by Lacey (isn't this rhyming fun), found herself pregnant, and her boyfriend Bradley was led to believe that the baby was his. The baby however is believed to be Archie's, since he raped Stacey a few months previously. She also had a brief affair with Bradley's father, which added to the emotional complexity in her character's role.

After the murder, Stacey becomes very emotional, and confides to a friend about the attack. Word gets out to Bradley about what Archie did, and he is one of the people who went into the Queen Vic on Christmas Eve.

Finally we come forward to where the police think that they know who the murderer is, with Bradley preparing to run away, convinced that he did it. Meantime, he and Stacey get married, and that evening she tries to confess to him that SHE is the one who actually killed Archie, however circumstances intervene in a horribly complicated plot, and Stacey never manages to tell Bradley the truth.

With the police chasing him, Bradley climbs up on the roof of a building, and there is a good old fashioned roof top chase, which ends with Bradley falling to his death.

Stacey then disappears, and has not been seen on the show since, although her character has not yet disappeared.

Her on screen mother Jean, another emotionally unstable character, who is played by actress Gillian Wright is also expected to leave the show later this year.

Eastenders went through a slump a few years ago, but in the last several years the script writers have come up with some amazingly complicated plots, including murders and many other twists, with a number of characters involved in crime of one sort or another or having affairs.

Seen on the BBC in the UK, Eastenders is syndicated to many countries around the world, and can also be seen in the USA on local PBS stations.

　

Sources:

BBC News

RTE Entertainment