West End Boy & His East End Girls

ArtsEd old boy beds Queen Vic's Sharon just as Den returns

If the anticipation of Dirty Den’s return wasn’t enough, the PR machines down at Eastenders have been promising us yet more action. Former ArtsEd student, Nigel Harman who plays smouldering Dennis Rickman, is all set to have a steamy affair with his screen ‘sister’ Sharon (the pouting blonde who’s married so many times, even the writers have lost track of her surname).

Even the most loyal soap fans would be forgiven for not grasping how he could have an affair with his sister, but apparently this is not incest due to the fact that Sharon was adopted.

Hartman got into acting by chance when his father - a leading light in amateur dramatics - roped him into a show when he was six years old. At eight, he had his first TV role in an advert for Oxo Cubes and soon afterwards he starred alongside Diana Rigg, Honor Blackman and Petula Clark in stage plays and musicals.

At 16 he moved on to the Arts Educational School in Chiswick, to study musical theatre. Since arriving in Albert Square six months ago, he has managed to seduce an amazing amount of women, upset an astounding amount of men, get himself beaten up a astonishing amount of times, murder his one time mentor and get
himself nominated for Best Actor in the National TV Awards. Even by Soap Land’s standards, that’s an impressive record.

September 30, 2003