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Homepage Jim Karas Personal Training Jim Karas Lifestyle Expert... jimkaras.com | Hip Resurfacing Surgery: Dr Jim Allen wockhardthospitals.net |
James Archibald "Jim" Branning is a fictional character from the popular BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by John Bardon, first appearing on 29 April 1996 and becoming a regular character in 1999. Jim was written out of the show in August 2007 due to Bardon suffering a stroke. A storyline was created that Jim also suffered a stroke. It was reported on 10 March 2008 that Bardon would be returning to the role of Jim in Summer 2008.[1] Collectively, Bardon returned to film four separate episodes in the later half of 2008. He returned permanently from the episode broadcast on 20 August 2009.
[edit] DevelopmentOn the behest of producer John Yorke in 2000, Jim was paired romantically with pensioner Dot Cotton, played by June Brown; a slow courtship was featured, with Dot often shown to be outraged by Jim's advances, resulting in numerous rejections. Dot finally succumbed and accepted his marriage proposal in an episode that aired in November 2001; the scenes were filmed inside one of the carriages of the London Eye on the South Bank of the River Thames. Their wedding aired on 14 February 2002, Valentine's Day. The Guardian critic, Nancy Banks-Smith, described the wedding as "uniquely uneventful [...] For Dot and Jim 'In sickness and health... till death do us part' seemed to carry more resonance than for most."[2] Bardon has revealed that both he and Brown were sceptical about their characters marrying. In an interview with American fan-based newspaper, Walford Gazette, he commented, "No way did the pair of us want to get married because we thought if we got married, we'd sit indoors and watch the telly every night. As it happened, we've had some nice things to do. And we are married, and it's worked out all right."[3] Brown has reiterated that she feared Dot would become boring if she married Jim, but that producers persuaded her that the marriage might be a good thing. On-screen, Dot had suffered the death of her grandson Ashley, and Brown felt that a traumatic event like that would have changed her character. In her opinion, the only way Dot would have got over Ashley's death "would be to have someone else to care for and when it happened there was nobody [but] with marrying Jim she gets a family - that's what persuaded me. That house will become a house again - it will have a central point, they will be able to use the house as a central point, as Dot will be there."[4] Critic Grace Dent has likened Dot and Jim to Coronation Street's Hilda and Stan Ogden, comparing a scene in EastEnders where Dot nags Jim and he prays for a quiet life to a similar one from Coronation Street, that aired decades before.[5] June Brown discussed Dot's relationship with Jim in 2004: "Initially, Jim wasn't the sort of person that Dot approved of. He drank, he gambled, he lied - he wasn't reliable at all. But Jim decided that he quite fancied Dot - heaven knows why! I think that you always have to work out for yourself how you can make the character work in a new situation. I could see that Jim was kind to Dot [...] His kindness drew her towards him. [...] Dot's definitely in control of Jim. She quite enjoys bossing him around."[6] Brown stated that she enjoys her screen partnership with John Bardon, saying "We work very well together - he's got great timing and he can be very tender too."[6] The on-screen relationship between Dot and Jim was halted in 2007 when Jim was hastily written out of the soap due to Bardon's health problems.[7] In the script Jim suffered a stroke and was placed in the care of off-screen relatives. Dot and Jim remained together, with Jim making sporadic appearances between 2008 and 2009 to visit Dot.[8] A more permanent return for the character was hinted at in 2009.[9] [edit] Storylines[edit] BackstoryThe patriarch of the Branning clan, Jim settled in a loveless marriage to Reenie, having six children. A heavy drinker, Jim treated his children unfairly, favouring some, neglecting others. When his son Max was blamed for stealing and losing a medal that Jim's mother was given during World War II in honour of his late father for bravery, Jim severed all ties with his son and even once locked him in a coffin for associating with a black person and left him in an Undertaker's establishment overnight as punishment. He used to be an amateur boxer using the nickname 'Basher' Branning, but according to Kate Lock's book Who's Who, he had been a "semi-invalid" for much of his working life following a drunken fall from a bedroom window, though he managed to maintain a job collecting supermarket trolleys until he was forced to retire.[10] [edit] 1996— Jim first appears when his daughter April is supposed to marry her fiancé Nikos. When Nikos jilts April at the altar, Jim's second daughter Carol marries her boyfriend Alan Jackson instead. Prejudiced and bigoted, Jim hates the fact that Carol is marrying a black man. He storms out, refusing to give her away. Three years later, Carol visits him in Southend, and later that year Jim moves to Walford following Reenie's death and it does not take him long to chase after an eligible widow on Albert Square, Dot Cotton. She becomes his second wife, marrying him in 2002. After a mishap with viagra, Dot decides that the marriage should remain purely platonic. Jim also has to fight off attention from several spinsters, including Maureen Carter and Doris Moisey, the latter who nearly causes the Brannings' separation. Despite being overtly racist initially, these hostile feelings mellow, as shown through his close friendship with the Trinidadian shopkeeper, Patrick Trueman. Jim works as a potman, collecting glasses in The Queen Victoria public house and likes to drink and gamble, to Dot's dismay. He clashes with Dot after she takes in an illegal immigrant, Anya, whose baby, Tomas, they find at a church. He reports Anya to immigration and she is taken into custody, but Dot keeps Anya's baby and makes Jim promise to look after him with her. In their old age, the Brannings struggle to look after the child, and Dot eventually listens to Jim's pleas and hands the baby over to social services. Jim goes to stay with Carol after she is taken ill, but he suffers a stroke while he is there. Unable to take care of him, Dot has Jim admitted to a nursing home. He visits his family and friends in Walford several times, but he continues to reject his son Max and animosity resurfaces. Following rehabilitation, Jim is permitted to return to live at home two years later. Jim can no longer speak more than a few words but he communicates through gestures. [edit] References
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