Comedienne or Moll: Sharon Mitchell

Lately, Sharon Mitchell has been half comedienne, half serious businesswoman on EastEnders. I know we should be grateful Sharon Mitchell (Letitia Dean) has had more screen time. For a while, she only appeared occasionally. She would give Linda Carter (Kellie Bright) a shoulder to cry on about Mick Carter’s (Danny Dyer) non-affair. Sharon would show up at the Queen Vic to add her wine-filled opinion to bar conversations. We were told by John Yorke that Sharon would have a big storyline after the holidays. Would it be about the club, Denny, or her marriage to Phil?

Well… It’s well after May 1st, and we’ve had some small Sharon storylines. We’ve seen her as the comedienne, popping wisecracks while full of alcohol and without. We’ve seen her as the moll or serious matriarch telling people to “sling their hook.” However, the big storyline is still a mystery. We’ve had “Sharon, the Heist Money Robber;” “Sharon, the E20 Club Businesswoman;” and “Sharon, the Drunk Aunt At Tea.” (Amazing how quickly she cleaned off all that cream.) In the Monday, 30/04/18, and Tuesday, 01/05/18, we saw Sharon “The Hard-Woman” handling business and having fun with Keanu Taylor (Danny Walters). So, should we just accept that Sharon is the supporting character to everyone’s major storyline? ?

Well, at this point, that’s where her plotline appears to be heading. Sharon doesn’t even have teenage Denny to argue with in the mornings before school. (Where has he been? Sharon doesn’t even yell upstairs to the boy anymore.) Some fans believe that she is the “leading lady” of Walford. Actually, Sharon is the supporting character that comes in to help move the storyline.

Although Sharon Mitchell owns the club with Phil, the storyline focuses on  Mel Owen’s (Tamzin Outhwaite) interactions with Jack Branning (Scott Maslen) and Phil Mitchell (Steven McFadden). If you take Sharon out of a few scenes in the club, she wouldn’t be missed.

Dean has been on EastEnders since it first aired. She deserves to have at least one major storyline where she is the lead. (The “Sharongate” and the Dennis Rickman storylines were more about the men than about Sharon.) Hopefully, Yorke will follow through and give her Sharon Mitchell a major storyline before he leaves the show. He needs to create a storyline that showcases her as a comedienne and as a moll. Otherwise, he’s just wasting her talent and her time.