User:AnemoneProjectors/Les Coker

Les Coker is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Roger Sloman. The character, a funeral director, appears in the show's 4,354th episode, shown in the United Kingdom on 9 January 2012, and then returns later in 2012 as a recurring character. In 2014, he becomes one of the main, regular characters, being joined by his wife, Pam Coker (Lin Blakley). They are later joined by their grandson, Paul Coker (Jonny Labey).

Storylines
Les first appears in the 9 January 2012 episode when he visits Carol Jackson (Lindsey Coulson) and David Wicks (Michael French) to arrange Pat Evans' (Pam St. Clement) funeral. He tells them he used to know Pat when he was an apprentice, implying he was her client when she was a prostitute, and offers a discount on the funeral. He says that he arranged funerals for many of the other local residents, including David's father Pete Beale (Peter Dean), Ethel Skinner (Gretchen Franklin) and Archie Mitchell (Larry Lamb). He returns for a single episode on 20 June 2012, to meet Jean Slater (Gillian Wright) to finalise arrangements for the funeral of her daughter Stacey Slater (Lacey Turner). Jean is distressed to hear that Stacey is dead, but Mo Harris (Laila Morse) reveals she has just spoken to Stacey on the phone, meaning Stacey is alive. Les apologises profoundly before leaving. On 5 July, he is seen by Sasha Dixon (Rebecca Sanneh) doing business with Anthony Moon (Matt Lapinskas) and it emerges that when someone dies, Les offers to empty their house and sells the goods to Anthony for his business. Sasha and her employer, Cora Cross (Ann Mitchell), then ask Les to offer every other house to them for the charity shop. On 10 July, he attends a wake for a former Walford resident at The Queen Victoria public house, where Kim Fox (Tameka Empson) pretends to know the deceased, and talks to Les, successfully gaining Sasha a work experience placement with Les's firm. On 17 July 2012, he attends the wake of a man previously known by Patrick Trueman (Rudolph Walker) and is annoyed when Cora turns up, as he has agreements with her and Anthony. On 31 July, he appears when Sasha starts her first day of work experience.

Les appears again on 25 March 2014 to arrange Nick Cotton's (John Altman) funeral. Les becomes a permanent character in April 2014, and relocates his funeral parlour to Albert Square, moving there with his wife, Pam Coker (Lin Blakley). When walking home one night, Arthur Chubb (Ricky Norwood), known as Fatboy, notices Les being handed money by Dot Branning's (June Brown) grandson Charlie Cotton (Declan Bennett). Fatboy tries to tell Dot what Les and Charlie are up to, but is unsuccessful. In July, Les hires Billy Mitchell (Perry Fenwick) at the undertakers, however he is disappointed when Billy doesn't turn up for work on his first day. Pam is upset when Les insults Emma Summerhayes (Anna Acton) while drunk, fearful it will reveal a big secret they have been keeping; that she euthanised their dying son, Lawrie. Billy eventually establishes a good working relationship with Les and a friendship as they spend Christmas together. Billy discovers the business is deeply in debt and forces Les to tell Pam this. They vow no more secrets, but after Les meets with his 'other woman', Claudette Hubbard (Ellen Thomas) and gives her an expensive necklace. Claudette and Pam are revealed to be old friends, as Claudette is a foster mother and Pam used to help children in care. Les holidays in Gran Canaria with Claudette, although Pam sees it as a coincidence when she learns from Claudette's foster daughter Donna Yates (Lisa Hammond) that they are both there at the same time.

Les arranges a party for the centenary of Coker & Sons, and Pam gets upset at the thought that their grandson, Paul (Jonny Labey), will not attend. The same day, Paul returns but is cold towards Les. He reveals he is aware of his long running affair with Claudette and that was why he went to work abroad in the first place, not because of Pam's decision to euthanise his father as they previously believed. Paul threatens to expose the affair to Pam so Les tries to end things with Claudette, but Claudette tells Les that it will not be that easy. Claudette's son Vincent Hubbard (Richard Blackwood) then becomes aware of the relationship between her and Les, and Paul tells Pam about it. Pam then finds Les's tie at Claudette's house, and when Les and Claudette give conflicting explanations, Pam leaves to stay with her sister. Les becomes very distraught at her departure, and Claudette urges him to tell Pam the truth, just as Pam returns and walks in on them together. Shortly after Claudette leaves the house, Pam urges Les to end the affair or their marriage is over. Two months later, Les visits Claudette for comfort after Pam refuses to speak to him on Lawrie's birthday. He later calls Claudette, telling her he cannot stop thinking about her, and makes an excuse to Pam to go and be with Claudette again. He is then caught in his underwear in Claudette's house by Donna, who concludes they are having an affair, and despite Les and Claudette denying it, Donna tells Pam what she saw. Pam then goes to Claudette's house and sets about destroying gifts from Les until Claudette says the presents are not hers, and Pam should ask Les about Christine. When Pam asks Les, he reveals that Christine is his secret feminine alter ego, where he dresses up in women's clothes and has done so since he was seven years old, but after they married he did not need Christine until Lawrie died, when the alter-ego became a grief outlet for him, and Claudette has been supporting this secret. Pam is horrified at him having lied to, and tells Les he disgusts her. However, Pam agrees to "meet" Christine. Les, as Christine, explains that this is how he can cope with things, as Christine is more open than Les, and he is still the same person. Pam apparently begins to accept this, but when Paul interrupts, Pam says she cannot accept it, so packs a bag and leaves, while Paul comforts Les. Paul manages to convince Pam to return home to talk to Les, but when she gets hesitant again, Les moves out to give Pam some time to think, and he moves in with Billy. Pam and Les have dinner together but she still cannot get the image of him dressed as Christine out of her mind, soLes burns all of Christine's clothes and photos and Pam agrees to take things one day at a time, but Babe Smith (Annette Badland) is watching and finds and pockets a surviving photo of Les dressed as Christine. Shortly after, Paul encourages Les to remind Pam of the man she first fell in love with and she agrees to his moving back in as long as they sleep in separate beds.

A few months later, Les spurns Babe, so she sends Les an anonymous email, blackmailing him over his crossdressing. When Pam notices money has been paid from their account, Les admits he has been blackmailed. The blackmailing continues regularly, and Pam starts to suspect Babe, and eventually they discover the truth. Les confides in Claudette and says he misses Christine, so she gives him some of her clothes and makeup that she still has. Stressed, Les dresses up again but is caught by Paul. Paul refuses to destroy Christine's things for Les, saying Les should not suffer for who he is. When Pam finds Les dressed as Christine, she chastises him and he suffers a heart attack. Billy sees him as he enters the ambulance. Billy calls Les a "pervert" to Pam, so she fires him from the funeral parlour. Pam then tells Les they should retire away from London and Les agrees; when Paul and his boyfriend Ben Mitchell (Harry Reid) find out, they decide they should take over the running of the funeral parlour. Paul's mother, Jenny Rawlinson, arrives looking for him, but he only assumes she is the blackmailer and orders her away. Pam and Les vow to tell Paul who she is, but Paul is killed in a homophobic attack. Pam struggles to cope, refusing to talk to Les about Paul, so he considers dressing as Christine; he explains why he cross-dresses to Billy and gives him his job back. Les then decides to be strong for Pam so tells Claudette he will no longer be Christine, but the blackmailing continues, with Pam refusing to go to the police, but she tells Claudette that Babe is the blackmailer. After four months of blackmail, Claudette reveals this to Babe's family, and Babe, who has just been attacked by Abi Branning (Lorna Fitzgerald) and come close to death, tells Claudette that she now sees how bad she has been and regrets everything, so it will stop. Les and Pam later attend a court hearing for Paul's killers. Les calls one of them, Simon Atmore (Tom Palmer), a liar after he denies having anything to do with Paul's death. When they arrive home, Pam tells him he needs to be Christine again. Les later suffers a small heart attack after talking to Linda Carter (Kellie Bright) who tries to comfort him and he eventually dresses up as Christine. Les then asks Pam if she would consider leaving Walford together for a fresh start after the trial is over which she agrees. Les and Pam are delighted when Babe returns all of their money. However, they decide to leave and Les appoints Billy as the manager of Coker and Sons. Pam packs a box of Christine's wig and clothes suggesting she has accepted her. After saying an emotional farewell to his friends and after giving Billy his funeral hat, Les departs with Pam for a new life in Worthing.

Development
Having been originally introduced in 2012 as the funeral director who arranged Pat Evans' (Pam St. Clement) funeral, Les appears in a further five episodes throughout 2012. Les was reintroduced as a regular character with his wife Pam also being introduced. Executive producer Dominic Treadwell-Collins said "Les and Pam are part of our plans to rejuvenate the show's older generation. It's already so exciting to watch the chemistry between Roger and Lin on set, playing characters who have been together for so long, they know each other inside out. Or so they think."

Sloman explained that he found Les's job as an undertaker "so interesting" and that he "loved investigating the job". The show had an advisor who was a funeral director, whose funeral home Sloman and Blakley visited to get advice. Sloman learnt the process of how to lay out a body, prepare it for makeup and embalm it, though he did not actually do any of the work.

Cross-dressing
When Sloman was told his character would be a cross-dresser, he saw it as an acting challenge. He researched the part by meeting a couple in which the man is a cross-dresser, watched videos online and watched women interacting with each other. He saw that "for a lot of heterosexual cross dressers, it is an escape; a way of becoming less stressed," and also felt that it helped him to understand women more. He saw "more emotional contact" between woman then men, so put that into Christine's character, making Les "able to relate to people in a closer way" when dressed as her. After Sloman was first fitted for his costume, the woman from the costume department noticed that he did not adjust the cardigan like a woman would, so he realised that men and women have different relationships with their clothing, and he decided to take the costume with him on holiday and wear it indoors every day with help from his wife, because he wanted to be sure that the first time viewers were introduced to Christine, it did not look like the first time Les had cross-dressed. Sloman said that the couple he met were "very happy with how EastEnders had portrayed the story and how the whoe thing was handled."

In April 2017, six months after Les and Pam departed, Kate White from Inside Soap said that Les's cross-dressing was a "very modern issue", which contrasted with the fact that Pam and Les "looked like an old-fashioned couple". Sloman said that it was "chancy" to make Les a cross-dresser, but that viewers were "moved by it and also gripped by the story, which was nice. I think the world has moved on and people are a lot more tolerant of different lifestyle choices than they used to be." White also said that "EastEnders missed a trick" by not having the rest of Walford meet Christine, and Sloman agreed, saying he had thought about "how the scene where Christine walks into the Vic would go", saying that he did not think he would get a chance to return to the series but "would be interested to go back and find out". He also said that although viewers did not see Pam and Christine going out together, "it was a distinct possibility when they left for Worthing".

Departure
Sloman and Blakley were axed by new executive producer Sean O'Connor in 2016, with a show insider commenting, "Pam and Les have been a big part of the show over the past few months and with their current storyline, bosses felt that it was the right time for their characters to leave the Square. There is still plenty more drama to come from the Cokers before they leave Walford."

Reception
TV columnist for The Sun, Ally Ross, called Sloman's initial cameo appearance in the show "TV gold". Of Pat and Les, Kate White of Inside Soap said "Pat had, erm, 'relations' with Mr Coker the undertaker. What a forward-thinking way to get a discount on your funeral." The Daily Mirror's Jane Simon commented on Les's scenes, saying "You don't often get laughs out of an undertaker, but the chap who turns up to arrange Pat's funeral has Carol Jackson spluttering into her tea."

After Les and Pam's departures, a reporter writing for the Inside Soap Yearbook described them as "soap favourites" and hoped they would "hurry home soon". In April 2017, Kate White from Inside Soap said that the Cokers' departure from Walford was "premature".